Last week saw the 2010 kickoff event for Mortgage Alliance. I have to say I’m really starting to believe that this company is more than the sum of it’s parts. I was warned against joining a national broker as there would be no training, no support, everything would have to go through head office. I would be like my hands were tied and there would be nothing I could do about it. The national brokers they said were nothing but a large aggregator of deals and all the bonuses went to head office.

When my previous office joined, well what I now have to a call an aggrigator, it all seemed to make sense. They pooled the volume of 100′s of independent broker offices and as a result offered better commissions, including bonuses to the brokers and agents involved. They even managed to negotiate a deal with one lender to provide a white label product that they could “sell” as their own product. But that’s were it all seemed to end. The vision was “more money.” No leadership beyond that goal.

Having experienced what goes on at Mortgage Alliance for a little over a year now, I’m happy to report that they are pretty much the exact opposite of the mythical “national broker”. They offer regular training on the key tools they provide. They also have from all reports from folks who have attended, a fairly comprehensive training package offered 3 times a year called Mac Academy. It fills up or sells out usually well in advance of the next offering of the course.

I think more importantly, the leadership of MA is what is making the difference. We have a president who has a vision of how he wants to see the overall industry change and evolve and as such sets us up to be key players in that vision of the future. A quick example is CAAMP, the national body designed to be the voice for brokers partially for marketing/advertising accredited mortgage professionals (AMP) but more importantly for effecting change within new legislation as we become a more regulated industry. For the average agent looking at CAAMP, mostly what they see is a form of taxation. They don’t see any direct benefit and generally complain about how CAAMP isn’t doing much for them.  Our management team sees them as the ONLY national organization that has the ability to promote and leverage itself with the law makers. There goal is to try and get at least two people elected to this board in order to try and promote our vision which ultimately helps everyone in the industry. So rather than sitting back and complaining about how badly CAAMP is broken, they instead take a pro-active approach and say how can we at least try and fix what we think is broken and at the same time improve the industry for brokers and consumers alike.

As Kevin O’Leary from the Dragon’s Den is so fond of saying, “how do I make money at this?”. I think this is too simplistic an approach and I now believe I understand that our management team very different and honest approach. Their focus is on the customer. Provide the best customer experience and they’ll not only return to do business with you, but recommend you to friends. Referrals is the key to not only this, but just about every service business. As the old saying goes, help enough people get what they want (proviso -and ensure a positive experience) and you will get what you want.

We can choose to be a “transactional” business that is constantly spending money to find new leads OR we can start the change and focus on our existing customers, treat them with respect and honesty and let them spread the word for us. What a concept.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I started, I was cynical (my wife might say that’s a constant state for me, but that’s another story). I heard the words. I saw the actions, but thought they were just following along. This past Thursday made me realize that the core group of leaders hasn’t changed in 10+ years. Think about that for a minute. Would you stick with something for 10 years if you didn’t have some belief in the vision or that maybe you could have a part in something that could grow and be great?

They started with a vision. They’ve stuck to it and now we are starting to see the fruits of their labour.  Heck, even I’m starting to catch the vision.

“There’s brokers. There’s lenders and then there’s Mortgage Alliance.”

The mortgage genius signing off.

I’m glad to see 2009 go from a mortgage lending perspective.

I’ll call it the year that all the rules changed. We went from getting a mortgage for people who could fog a mirror to people with great credit (780) and more than 20% down that were being declined.

At the same time new regulations came into effect (and a complete churn in new required documentation) and due diligence was the (not so new) catch word.

I would describe the year akin to playing a game where everyone was playing by a known set of rules and suddenly the rules change for everyone and know one is sure what the new rules are. Several lenders disappeared including one as recently as December. Just as I was starting to get used to the new rules and figure out which lenders fit where (they all reverted back to their primary niches), one of the major lenders disappears.

I’m supposed to be giving a “Market Update” next week. I think I’ll have to start with a little background of the fun that happened last year and hope that things have settled for 2010.

I have sent around a report from an economist I enjoy reading. He seems to think that not much is going to change for the coming year.  I’ll post it below for reference.