How to Choose a Mortgage Lender in Vancouver

Why is Choosing the Right Mortgage Lender Important?

Choosing an effective mortgage lender is a critical component to achieving success with your real estate purchases and sales over time. Within the files of most mortgage applications, there is likely one or more aspect that doesn’t fit the profile of an ideal borrower or property in the eyes of the biggest banks in Canada. As such, a skilled mortgage lender will improve the chances of success — at the lowest possible interest rate with the best possible loan terms.

Why Choose a Mortgage Broker Over a Bank?

Right off the bat, many homebuyers don’t understand the differences between effective mortgage brokers versus visiting their banks directly.

1. In 99% of circumstances, the services of a mortgage professional are covered by the lender. Due to this, it does not cost a home buyer anything to receive professional advice.
2. Mortgage brokers work for the client, not the bank. They grow their businesses by facilitating their clients’ success and through growing relationships. The relationship with the client is key to the broker’s long term success, versus the client’s mortgage being simply a transaction — which tends to be the case within most banks.
3. Speed and availability: a good mortgage broker (or broker team) is about 2-5 times faster at every step than many or most bank reps. Mortgages are all they do, and they are exceptional at quickly moving their clients through the process. They are often available outside of traditional bank hours — including weekends when real estate activity tends to be busiest. This is key when a buyer is in a competitive offer situation and is working with tight timelines.
4. Access: mortgage brokers have access to over 50 different lenders. An effective broker can evaluate a borrower and select a lender that has the most appropriate policies in place for that borrower’s situation.
5. Experience: As someone gets to a point where they are advancing to more sophisticated real estate acquisitions and strategies, they will need to partner with someone who has the experience to guide them through these transactions on the financing side. Bank reps who are often moving through their careers at the branch oftentimes have limited experience and are unable to help guide them through more complex borrowing solutions.
6. Creativity: brokers work with a wide variety of clients with different income types, credit scores, and properties. They are able to leverage all of the tools noted above to help come up with solutions when there may be an issue that would be outside of the scope of most banks’ knowledge.

How to Choose the Right Mortgage Broker

1. Ideally, getting a referral from someone you trust who has been through the buying process at least once in Vancouver with the referred mortgage broker.
2. Reading through online reviews posted to the mortgage broker’s (or team’s) Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, etc. pages can provide reliable ‘social proof’— particularly if the volume of reviews is high.
3. Performing a review of the mortgage broker’s (or team’s) online presence (website and social media platforms) can give a sense of how serious the broker is about their business, given that every business owner knows that a high quality and up-to-date online presence is very important nowadays.