In this episode of Brokers for Life, host Len Lane sits down with Elena Robinson, VP of Residential Sales at First National, to discuss her 35-year journey in the mortgage industry. Elena shares how she witnessed First National’s incredible growth from a small startup to a powerhouse with 1,700 employees, all while maintaining a strong commitment to mortgage brokers. She highlights the company’s unique approach—prioritizing customer service and never competing with brokers directly. 

Elena sheds light on popular mortgage products, such as insured five-year terms and stated income options, and emphasizes the importance of working with marketable properties and well-qualified borrowers. Looking ahead, Len and Elena discuss the current economic landscape and its potential impact on the mortgage industry in 2025. While cautious optimism prevails, Elena notes factors like interest rate shifts, government policies, and economic uncertainties that could influence market trends. 

She also shares insights from industry experts on how brokers can navigate these changes successfully. Throughout the discussion, both Len and Elena stress the importance of broker-client relationships, ongoing education, and adapting to market shifts. Tune in for an insightful conversation packed with industry expertise, valuable advice, and a forward-looking perspective on the mortgage business.

Elena first joined Canada’s leading residential mortgage financing team, First National Financial, in 1990 as its first Business Development Manager, a role held for three years. In 2018, she returned to help re-launch the Excalibur program, First National’s alternative lending division. With more than three decades of experience in the mortgage industry, Elena has worked across various facets, including lending, alternative lending, and brokering.

Throughout Elena’s career, relationships have remained a constant. Many of the connections made at the beginning of their career over 30 years ago have evolved into long-standing professional relationships and friendships. Returning to First National to help launch the Excalibur division felt like building a company from the ground up, requiring passion, dedication, and a deep commitment to supporting both the team and brokers.

Having been a broker personally, Elena understands the daily demands of the role and can relate to the challenges brokers face. Approachability and trust have been the hallmarks of their career, and they take great pride in being a trusted source of knowledge, advice, and support.

First National, once a small and close-knit company, has always felt like home to Elena despite their experiences elsewhere in the industry. The enduring values and relationships within the organization continue to foster an environment of trust, respect, and collaboration—qualities that have been fundamental to her professional journey.

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Transcript:
Len  00:02

Welcome. My name is Len Lane, and I am the founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc, and we are Dominion Lending Centers in Western Canada. The topic of our podcast will be about what we consider to be Real Life Mortgage Solutions. Welcome back. Season Three, episode one, the 25th I guess that's our silver anniversary in the podcast. My guest today is Elena Robinson, and she is the Vice President of Residential Sales for First National, nationally, right? 

 

Elena  00:36

Yeah, across Canada. Hi, Len, how are you? 

 

Len  00:40

I'm great. How are you? Welcome to the podcast. It's personally we're recording from the studio here today, and let's introduce you to the audience. Maybe give us a background in your industry, in the industry there.

 

Elena  00:56

Every time I talk about my background, it sort of tells you how old I am, because I've been in this business for over 35 years. I actually started in the trust side of the business. It was called Victoria and Grey Trust, or, as we jokingly used to call it, vicious and greedy. I don't know if there was, I don't believe they were located outside of in Western Canada. But, and I've only ever done mortgages, I, you know, started a very young age, and sort of never had other career change other than progress, progressing in this industry. And then I ended up at First National at when they were just a little startup company, and I think I was like, either the eighth or 10th employee, so yeah, it was a big leap of faith, because, you know, I had come from these major, big trust companies and I had worked with some of the individuals, like one of the owners, Moray Tawse, and we can talk about Moray and Steven, but Moray worked for Central Guaranteed Trust. You know, who else Doug Farmer? Doug Farmer from First National also worked at Central guarantee trust. And Scott McKenzie, the gentleman who hired me to come over to first national as their very first BDM so and you know, I did eventually leave. I got married and became a mortgage broker for over 20 years. But it's amazing to see the growth of this little startup company of First National to where it is, like 1700 employees now and across Canada when we were just a little operation in Ontario and and that's because of Moray Tawse and Stephen Smith. 

 

Len  02:44

Yeah, you know, the size of it is, I'm a shareholder, so I'm blown up here. It's, you know, it's amazing to watch what, what they've done, what he continues to do. I don't think retirement is in his sights as it isn't in mine, either.

 

Elena  03:01

Oh Steven? Oh no, I think he's, he's in his early 70s, and he just keeps, you know, like, as you know, he obtained Home Trust a couple of years ago. He's, you know, part owner of Canada Guarantee. And, yeah, he just, he, he's non-stop, that gentleman. But it's funny because people don't know that, like, you know Stephen Smith and Moray Tawse own First National and from, you know how they started was Moray worked at Central Guarantee Trust in the mortgage department. He was like the manager of the mortgage office. I actually worked at another mortgage office, but, and then he met Stephen, and they, you know, Stephen was trying to sell mortgages. He was an investment dealer for a small boutique company, and that's how they connected. And then they thought, well, why not build a company where, you know, you deal with mortgage brokers and pay them commissions and the rest is history. 

 

Len  04:01

Yeah, and have solely built on mortgage brokers as well, as is one of the things that we always appreciate about it, that we're not competing with you at a branch level as well. 

 

Elena  04:10

Yeah, we, you know, it's funny, over the years, there have been conversations about, you know, direct to consumer, but, you know, we've never gone down that pathway, it's our mortgage brokers have been, you know, the reason why we are successful, and, you know, we don't want to change any of that success or the process. So, yeah, no, we're strictly mortgage brokers, no branch network, no direct to consumer. You know, on our website, nothing like that. We actually even have a lead generation sort of thing where, and surprisingly enough, we do get a lot of requests from customers that come on our website and want us to do mortgages, and then we just kind of redirect it to our mortgage brokers, so.

 

Len  04:55

Yeah, yeah, no, and that's a formula that's that has worked for several. Lenders as well, right? That, yes, not being, not being a, I don't know, competition, I guess for the mortgage brokers makes everybody appreciate what you guys do that much more. I think so. And we kind of covered our first two questions, talking about Stephen Smith as well. Of course, ongoing story. It's interesting to hear that my wife started in that in the industry about the same time. But for two, two gentlemen you may have met over the years, called James and Jerry. She actually worked for them at Bridgewater Bank.

Elena 5:32

Oh yes.

Len 5:34

And then Bridgewater Bank, and then ResMor. And when, when she when res Mohr got sold out. She was the first person to quit because we were getting married. So, so 30 years of background history for her 15, of them with me, and probably, actually more than 30, probably 35 in the industry as well.

 

Elena  05:54

Very similar to to sort of me, because, you know, when I got married, and I did get married to a mortgage broker that's, you know, I joined. The unfortunate part is, you're still happily married. I am not. So I did go back to lending right after that.

 

Len  06:12

Interesting. She's, there is no brokers for life without Margie, because she does all of the background stuff that I would be terrible at, and I deal with the lenders and the agents, right? So our split is pretty balanced that way.

 

06:23

It works. It works for you guys, great.

 

Len  06:30

So little bit more, maybe about First National and you know what that ideal client looks like to them?

 

Elena  06:37

That's a good question, because I think my answer would probably echo the majority of the other lenders out there. And you know, of course, you always want the person who makes their payments on time. You want a marketable property. Of course, you want someone who's built a good net worth and, you know, solid credit. You know, pretty much the five C's of credit. I think that really applies. Now that's again, on the prime side. You know, we have both sides, right? We have our prime side and we have our alternative side. You know, I I always like to put data out there. You know, if you look at our average beacon score on the prime side, it's 760 which is really good. Yeah, very healthy. And even on the Excalibur, it's people are actually shocked when they tell what our average beacon score is, is 716 but that really tells you the strength of the clientele in the the alternative side. I think sometimes the misconception is that, you know, if you're fall into that bucket, that your credit tends to be not as good as the prime side, which is, I think it's a bit of a fallacy. Now, I'll admit, we don't, on our Excalibur side, don't do anything below the 500 range. There are other lenders that do, and they specialize in them. You know, great for them. But yes, we do have a certain clientele that we deal with on on the alternative side. But no, we have great clients. I mean, you know, returning clients. It's funny, just a short little story. There was a broker recently who talked to me about a client that he unfortunately had taken out of First National, you know, at renewal, and took it out, and then the client actually kind of gave him heck and said, Why did you do that? You know, I love first national. They got a great portal. You know, customer service is fantastic, which so, you know, it was a heartwarming story for us to hear that, you know, a client really likes dealing with First National. And we are very, I would say, customer focused company, like we always want to be available, be proactive with the clients, because then it really makes their broker look like a superstar. Like, yeah, you didn't put us with a company that doesn't appreciate them as a client.

 

Len  09:16

Yeah, lots of comments on on the portal. I'm actually have a mortgage with you as well. So not only am I a shareholder, I’m a client, but that's one of the easiest things I think we've seen. We've had our mortgages with the banks and stuff over the year. Took a long time to get away from the bank eventually, but it's, you know, the ease of going in and see what I can do and if I want to make that extra payment, which is how we kind of set it up. But, you know, it's a, it's quite simple process to do that. So that is definitely an advantage, not that there are competitors, ones who are quite easy to use, I'm told as well, but I've never had.

 

Elena  09:57

Yes, well, it is true because, you know, it's. Word of mouth, it's what the customer like. It's the biggest investment of their lives. For majority, for majority of clients, I would say that is the biggest investment of their lives. So you want to make it like a smooth and easy and rewarding experience, because it is very, very important to them, right? Because it is that big, that big part of their lives.

 

Len  10:26

It’s probably 97% of the people who are in the country, it is their biggest investment, usually, right? 

Elena 10:33

So it is, it is. 

Len 10:34

So with that said, which, what products are your most successful? Do you think?

 

Elena  10:37

Well, of course, our insured, or five year insured business has always been our biggest, I guess top seller, if you want to call it that. Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I am seeing more of the adjustable rate, and that's just with the times, based on what's happening with the prime rate. And you know, the reduction of what we're seeing happening, and I think that's become more popular for people. If you were to ask me about our niche product, like, you know, what seems to stand out, I would say on the prime side, our stated income, you know, where you don't necessarily have to provide all those documents that you need. You know, it's based on a projection or like, here's your growth, here's your net. This is somewhere in between that we use. We don't need the tax documents so far, so much. Medical professionals, niche that one that seems to be really gaining ground and growing all the time. And to break option plus, I think that half price or shared buy down seems to be very popular. And yes, you know, this business is very cyclical, right? It changes with what's happening with the market. And currently, that's what I would say seems to be our most popular in terms of our Excalibur side, the alternative side, stated income. yeah, we do a lot of the stated income. And you know, when we launched Excalibur in 2018 and that's how I actually came back to First National, you know, because I did start with them, but I was away from them for a while, and then I was hired to come back to First National to launch the Excalibur, and that was essentially to provide solutions, because of those things that you know when the government changes happen with the stress tests, BFS clients who are finding it more difficult to get mortgage financing, and that was the reason why we launched Excalibur at the time, so that still to this day, I would say stated income, where you only use bank statements as as a process for qualifying. The other one would be those temporary clients, you know, those clients where something's happened to their life. You know, could be a divorce, it could be a death or sickness, and you know their life has been affected, usually their credit. And you know this is a temporary solution for them that they're going to clean up, and you're usually the brokers helping them to get to that, to back to that status. So we see a lot of those temporary clients where they're just in there for a couple of years to get them to that stage, to move them back to the prime side, and that's where we see, because of our graduation program, too where, you know, you can move it over to the prime side with no cost. And so those, if I break it down, those seem to be the most popular products that we have on both the prime and the and the Excalibur side.

 

Len  13:54

Right? And it's interesting, because we see that on the B product, as you know, A, B and C product, we look at it right. Like you said, that credit score being 716, is, is at one time that that was golden, but again, the TDs and GDS being able to extend that out. Is it 50 with you or 60?

 

Elena  14:16

Yeah, 50-50, we are. There's new program product that we're working on, Excalibur, one of the first to know, but I'm hoping in by the end of q1 that we'll have it up and running so it'll be even higher, better solution, more helpful solution, I guess, for those clients. You know, BFS clients, surprisingly, their credit is really good, like, you know, so I think that what, that's what brings up our Excalibur 716, average beacon score. It is mainly the business for soft clients. They're excellent clients to have. And really, when you think about it, they're the backbone of Canada. You know, so many small businesses help this country, especially with everything that's happening.

 

15:06

And yet we tax them to death.

 

Elena  15:08

And yet we tax them to death. Exactly, exactly.

 

Len  15:12

Trust me, I know we're just doing taxes at the moment. Yeah. So, yeah, it's kind of interesting to see that, that the growth in that industry is, you know, again, like you said, ebbs and flows. I was joking about how I was watch every year that everything changes. Somebody will be the top one year, and, you know, change their programs and be back at the bottom at the end of the year and stuff like that. The lenders with that B product. And in case, your case, where you can actually easily take them from B to A is is more more and more prevalent every day, I think. And as the rates come down, of course, they will qualify, hopefully in the year or two, to, you know, to be the move to from the B to the A. 

 

Elena  15:58

Yeah, rates go down, their incomes go up, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of factors, but majority of them do eventually move BFS clients, don't, I have to admit. And again, as we you mentioned the taxes, it is a better solution for BFS to pay the slightly higher rate than to pay higher taxes, and it's just logical.

 

Len 16:22

I have a client who's been in a private deal for decade, probably only because he doesn't want to pay Revenue Canada any more than on 25,000 a year, and he's quite happy to pay the extra points on his private lending and have them have to send less to Ottaway. 

 

Elena 16:44

And he's saving money, I'm sure.

 

Len  16:46

Probably in the long run. Yeah, he hasn't figured out that he is. So that's all that matters. He's happy with it. And we've had to move him around a couple times, because some people keep going, like, why are you still here?

 

Elena  16:57

Yeah, there's always that exit strategy, especially on the private side. I mean, that's what brokers do a lot. They work from C and they move into B and then they move into A, yeah.

 

Len  17:08

Yeah. That's what I tell everybody. Don't let the deal go. Let's have a look at it. If it's it's viable to be in a private lender to begin with, then, yeah, the work with the client to be a year from now, two years sometimes, you know, move, move to a B, or soft B, as I call them, and, and, you know, the five year goal is to have them back into an A term at somewhere down the line, right? So, so work hard with them, because you're going to get paid three times, right? 

Elena  17:34

yeah, yeah. And then get referrals, yeah. 

 

Len  17:38

And they will tell everybody, trust me.

Elena 17:41

They will tell everyone.

Len 17:43

Okay, so those are all the clients you like. Who are the clients that you don't like to see? 

 

Elena 17:47

I wouldn't say… the ones that don't pay their mortgages.

 

Len 17:51

Not the obvious ones.

 

Elena  17:55

Probably the weaker client being, you know, maybe the lower beacon scores. And by the way, just because our average beacon score is 760 doesn't mean we don't look at, you know, lower beacons. It just so happens that that's our average. But yes, of course, we look at the even on the prime side, I would say, necessarily the clients. What I, I would love, or I think, as a lender, would love, is better notes on on deals, you know, like, because, yeah, she could have that weaker client. But if you have a great story, if you can explain, you know, everything about that deal, I think you have a better chance of getting that deal done. And I think that's where the struggle is sometimes just getting a deal in and saying, Good deal, please approve. You know, it helps the lender to get an overall picture of that client, right? So way where, if you don't have any notes, you could possibly think that is a weaker client, when necessarily it may not be, because there is an explanation for where maybe the credit is slightly weaker or lower than we normally see, or something about the income, or something about the, you know, change of business, you know that I think is more important if you can provide a better notes for your files to allow the lender to really review and look and open up their minds to the possibility of making that deal work. I think that makes your client weaker if you don't provide that sort of background and information.

 

Len  20:00

that's part of our training, right? We train a lot of people. Some are trainable. Some are but in especially about the notes, there are some templates out there that we start them with those, and then, you know, kind of elevate that to the next step, where it's like, don't explain the obvious. They can see the credit score. They can see that, but, you know, explain our twos, or if there's a missed payment, or why is there a gap in the employment, things like that. You know, do the background stuff more than than saying, and I know it's a bank rep that that's working with us, if they say, please, I approve this. I recommend this for approval. Yes, that's nice of you, but that's nice, but that wasn't up to you anyway. You know, it's taking those things that are in the background explain it out. Why is there a big lump sum payment? Is it a gift? Is, you know, what are all the little nuances of the deal that, yes, they'll make the underwriter go like, Oh, okay, well, I'll go look at that and, you know, we'll make sure that that gets okayed, if, you know, if it's viable, and stuff like, stuff like that as well.

 

Elena  21:01

It may it makes the client more than just a number, right? You really like for us, we really, are really dedicated to making that experience for the client important, right? Like, the worst thing for us, honestly, is if a deal doesn't close on the day of closing, and the thought that that client is in that truck with their family and they can't move into so we really do want to make this more than just another deal and another transaction, another number. That's why it's so important to to explain as much as you can about that client to us,

 

Len  21:42

I lose my mind when I find out that somebody's not getting the keys.

 

Elena 21:46

Oh yea, so do we. 

 

Len  21:50

You know, it’s funny, I did a podcast that's coming out after yours is with Reuben Gorsk. Oh yes, it happened to him. Actually himself, right? And of course, there was one piece of paper missing, and they had packed their house. So guess where the paper was? Right? Yes, in a box, in a truck. So Friday, they ended up spending like, four days in a hotel to until they could get the keys. So I'm going like, Yep, I'm my worst, my worst nightmare in 18 years. I we just had one recently. But…

Elena 22:27

Did you?

Len 22:28

Oh, yeah, but that was this, not very well communicated by the lender. Let's put it that way. It wasn't you guys. 

 

Elena 22:36

It wasn’t? Oh, thank god. I was gonna say, please don't tell it with us. 

 

Len  22:38

But, you know, and at the last minute, they're like, oh, we need this well, or this doesn't match now, and then, you know, bit of both client as well as the lender. But you know, just to stop the process, and you know, have to go far away, a long way up the chain to…

 

Elena 22:55

To get it to close.

 

Len  22:57

To get somebody to look at this, because it really wasn't that big of a problem, I thought anyway, but we did get it closed so that that's the important part. But client again in a hotel room for three kid.,

 

Elena  23:10

Right? You don't want that. You don't want that experience, especially if it's their first home, you know, you know. You don't want that memory etched into their brain, as you know, and they'll never forget it. And you know, of course, you'll be part of that memory.

 

Len 23:26

That’ll be a story for the rest of their life, right.

 

Elena  23:28

Right, exactly. So, yeah, that that's not something that we ever, ever want to happen, right? As an experience? 

 

Len  23:37

Yeah, I do know there are some scenarios that don't work well for you. And private deals, obviously one right that we see a lot of extra due diligence on your side, which is…

 

Elena  23:49

What do you mean, private sales? Is that what you're?

Len 23:53

Yeah, yeah. 

Elena 23:54

But we should still, like, we still do them, but yeah, there's yeah.

 

Len  23:59

Plan for a little extra time, that's all.  

Elena  24:02

Do you see more of these private sales happening just because of how the market is out in Western Canada? 

 

Len  24:11

You know, I don't think there's a large amount of them at the moment, just personal ones that I've had over the years that, of course, I make them do appraisals and everything up front and get all of that out of the way, right, so that, because we know that's coming, right, private sales are always some extra due diligence needs to be done and should be. Of course, in house, there's some extra steps that First National needs to take, but that that's your but we know that, and that that's one of the beauties of knowing your lenders as well as you can, and you can recommend new people don't bother sending that there. That's going to set off a whole bunch of other things, right? Red flags and stuff like that. So maybe not red flags, just extra due diligence and extra time if you're in a rush.

 

Elena  24:56

Well, especially now with all the new rulings. Of, you know, AML and doing that extra, you know, due diligence that the brokers have to do. 

 

Len  25:09

Yeah, we're fortunate that we have Velocity, because that is built right in.

Elena 25:15

Oh, great. 

Len 25:16

We only work in Velocity. We've shut down Filogix, so well over a year ago, year and a half ago, probably now, and everybody has to work in there, but it's built in. It's, it's, I can't imagine, at one time, where Filogix and Finmo and Velocity and finally got everybody just said, Okay, this makes no sense. A and so much to for our own compliance, because we do audit every day, right? Which is probably not the same as everyone does, but that's just the way everything they got open the day before we look at make sure that service agreements and all of that are in place. But yeah, when you start to try and do that, and then to try to do payroll based on three different platforms, it just made no sense. 

 

Elenea 25:59

That's a nightmare.

 

Len  26:01

And then the, of course, when the AML came out, it was it was just, it was October 11, it was there. It was in there to go, check the boxes, check ID, if you don't have a three years credit bureau. And that was all up and running automatically for so thank God, because really, I can't imagine having to do that manually for one.

 

Elena  26:22

Well, I do know of some brokers, some independent brokers, who have again joined like the Velocity, or join like Velocity for that purpose, because, yeah, it, you know, it was something very different. A lot of work for somebody who's not from a big company that was able and, yeah, I mean, it was a great solution to move over to that, to that platform.

 

Len  26:51

2025, we’re already into it a bit your year end is the calendar. Yes, what is the forecast for first national for 2025? If you’re able to say it. I get a lot of people on the podcast that go, well, that's not my department.

 

Elena  27:07

No, no, no again. These are my opinions usually formed from watching different economists in the last couple months. If I were to say, I would have said, if you asked me before Trump, I would have said very optimistic for 2025. Post Trump, I would say cautiously optimistic. And there are several reasons why I say that. So if I look at our fourth quarter. Actually, fourth quarter was great. It was really, I think, because of all those decreases in the prime rate, you know, we had that 50, the drop. And I think most people started seeing, people were coming off the fence. They were feeling a little bit more comfortable. They saw, based on projections that you know the prime rate was going to probably drop to about two and a quarter, two and a half in 2025 that was the expected drop. So we really saw a great uptick in fourth quarter. January was really good too. Now Trump comes in, and all the, I call it the Trump factor, you know, and then all this talk about the tarriffs. So I think from what we've seen, and I just saw Benjamin Tal last week, you know, this has sort of tempered the marketplace a little bit, you know, in terms of now, I feel people are again, sitting back and waiting, and I think there's a lot of reasons, you know, on employment, they're concerned about their employment with with what might happen with the tariffs, if, if Trump brings them in. Benjamin Tal thinks it's just a tactic on Trump's part. I hope that's the case. We all hope that's the case, but that's his feeling, is that that's what Trump's doing to get some things, you know, moving, but that's why I say cautiously. I'm optimistic. Let's see what happens. Will the tariffs make that much of a difference? Will people lose their jobs? Will that affect people not wanting to buy in the next few months? So cautiously optimistic friends, so I have gone from optimistic to cautiously optimistic. I think we'll still see some rate drops happening in the marketplace because of the volatility that's happening. We'll see. So is that a good answer? At least I answered it.

 

Len 29:51

That was very diplomatic.

 

Elena  29:55

I hope Benjamin Tal is correct. I hope that what he's saying… I did see another economist two weeks before that, they don't think tariffs is going to make that much of, you know, like when you really look at the numbers and it might increased prices by, you know, a small amount, but media has a tendency to really blow things out of proportion. I think sometimes it makes it like even the condo market too, that, you know, in Ontario, we're seeing some effect on the condo market, and it is, you know, especially the new builds, because the values are not coming in based on when they purchased it five, you know, five years ago. But Benjamin Tal said, you know, yes, you're going to see that, but developers have stopped building, so in two to three years, when people are looking, there's not going to be enough supply again at that time. And he said it may be difficult in like, let's say, 18 months to at, you know, to get a good price for a condo, you could probably get a good price now. But again, these are opinions from the economists. They go to school a lot longer than I did for, you know, and and sometimes economists are like weathermen, right 50% of the time they're right, and 50% of the time they're wrong. 

 

Len  31:19

That's one of my podcasts or blogs. Economists: the weatherman of finance, right 50% of the time. 

Elena  31:25

Perfect. Perfect title. Yes, exactly.

 

Len  31:29

It's, yeah, it's kind of, we're calling it being “Trumped.” But if you read the art of the deal, that's go big and loud and boisterous and see what happens, right? And first thing that happened was, like, Canada had a knee jerk reaction. If we had somebody actually running the country in general, like if Parliament was actually open, they could be doing something constructive about it. Of course, at some point this year there will hopefully be an election, so lots of within our own government, along with him, and I think you just saw it as a weak spot for us anyway.

Elenea 32:08

Exactly. 

Len 32:09

Throw this out at them now, because they don't, they're all just disrupted and all of that stuff. So there's no question, as far as sales go, Donald has it pretty much figured out. But again, will we get the full another 1% this year. I don't think so. I'm a little cautious with some of my clients on the on the variable, because, of course, as the rates come down, the discount shrinks. Obviously, that's just to make sure there's no money coming into you guys. But you know that when I had when the point nine was there for a while, I had three or four clients I got into that. We still have some clients here on the last holding on to the last breath of 1.2 fives and stuff like that from the early 2000s right? So it's early 2020s I guess, so it's it'll be interesting to see. As far as we saw, January was our best January in it equaled the January of 2021.

 

Elena  33:01

Which was a great year, the pandemic years. 

 

Len  33:06

That was a good sign. We'll see what February the pandemic, the the big pandemic year, right where we were up in a crazy amount of business. But we'll see what February looks like. It feels like it's a little slower, but again, yeah, people are kind of going, are the tariffs going to make that make a difference? Well, 10% on oil, sounds like the refineries would just absorb that in the States anyway, here the lumber guys, of course, the lumber guys are the software tariff came in in the 80s, and I know that because I had tractor trailers going back forth to California, and the loads disappeared, basically on lumber because nobody wanted to pay tariffs then. But now they're saying their tariff will actually be up in the 40% range. So with with an addition of 25 right? So you know, lots of different economies. Of course, Alberta is not just oil. We raise a few million cattle as well. So there'll be tariffs on that and a few other things. So it will be interesting to see for the auto industry. Of course, in Ontario, I know the numbers down there, I must be down. And as my good friend Mr. Butler talks about the dog traits all the time, but you're right, so the builders have stopped, right? So Ben’s, right? So it's like, yeah, you can get a deal now, because people are in dire straits, they need to sell them one way or the other. And you know, three years from now, that'll get absorbed. It's inventory, and it's like any other inventory. Once it once it gets used up and and you know, the prices will come back. Will they be as high? Maybe not, but in the not as not as high as their peaks, anywhere where, you know, the 500 square foot was, what three quarters of a million dollars probably at one point so, but yeah, it's always interesting forecast, and it's pretty much impossible to budget for mortgage brokerage, as you probably know from the past, that are pretty hard to get. The numbers, there's only one thing that we've always done, and that's kept their overhead low, because it's just the fixed cost. We can manage that and then just figuring out how the cash flow will go through the year, and there's always something interrupting it, it seems, right.

 

Elena  35:16

Well, if, if we could predict we we would be making a lot of money.

 

Len  35:23

Yeah, not that we're not. Don't get me wrong, no industry has been amazing to us over the years. Team of 38 agents at the moment, so it's always teaching, and that's a big part of what we do. We've got, I think we've got, a dozen people now at different stages of learning with us, so that's always exciting to see. And first national courses, one of the ones, we get them in front of Serena, usually pretty early in the process as well. 

 

Elena  35:51

We love getting the new brokers right off the bat, because it truly builds loyalty. And if you know, if you train them, and you're really invested in helping them start the business in this business, like we talked about this earlier, a little bit like nobody goes to school to be a mortgage broker, right? You just kind of eventually fall into it. And surprisingly enough, because I see all the onboarding that's happening continually seeing people joining this business because it is a great business to be in. You know, you can make a very good living doing what you're doing.

 

Len  36:35

And that’s after many years in a show home like here it runs from so we would start Friday was a day off, so Saturday through to Thursday was, was the work week, right? Somebody asked me why I didn't go into real estate after that, I went, like, because of that, exactly that I've already done my time in there. So, and I see my real estate friends, and we have a lot of them. One of our top agents is married to a REMAX seller. But you know, it's like, how do you get away for a holiday from real estate? Because it's such a one on one business where mortgages, we've done mortgages from Ireland, we've done it in Sweden. We've done it from Mexico more years. Well, yeah, so VPN connect to Montreal, right? So, and now, even more so with systems like Velocity and I'm sure some of the others are similar that, you know, it's a phone. Packages have changed. Go to the Latin countries or Central America and stuff like that, and the phone still works just like you were at home now, right? So, so it's always interesting to see that. I don't, yeah, I never planned to be this. I was trying to build a trucking company, but soft wood tariffs got anyway.

 

Elena 37:50

Tariffs again.

 

Len  37:51

Tariffs again. Yes, so, so, but it's, it has been very good to Margie and I and and our whole team. Actually, there's lots of them who have made in some of them, in case of over, well over millions of dollars in commissions, right? So it's good. So I want to thank you for your time today. I know you're a busy person, and

Elena 38:14

Thank you, Len. 

Len 38:15

It’s great to catch up on on what's going on at First National and a little bit about yourself and how it came about. 

 

Elena  38:19

Well, I know it's been a pleasure, Len, and yeah, I've enjoyed myself immensely, and it went by so fast, I tell you, I feel like I've just been talking to you for five minutes.

 

Len  38:30

Excellent, great. Okay, have a great day. 

 

Elena 38:33

You too. Len, bye, bye.

 

Len  38:37

Thanks for listening today. I hope you found the information that we provided to be useful in your mortgage journey. And remember you can always find our associates at www.brokersforlife.ca/associates. Have a great day.