Welcome to the mortgage game. I truly, truly believe that building a mortgage business, a successful one, is like playing a game. There's winners, there's losers, there's certain things you try. Some of us are playing checkers while others are playing chess. I've had the ability to coach and mentor hundreds of mortgage brokers. I myself built a very nice business.
So now I want to distill all that information, all the things I've learned from that and bring it directly to you in a simple to understand way. I hope you enjoy. All right. Welcome to Mortgage Game Podcast.
West Coast Wiley here coming to you live podcast west coast why we're here coming to you live back off camera man technical difficulties so that's okay it was like you wait until you get the perfect setup and then you get the perfect thing where it can hold the camera inside the truck to film you so you get some content you can repurpose it and then that's like a day or two days and then you talk or you just do the podcast audio style old school
like we have for hundreds of these and then you talk or you to, just do the podcast, audio style, old school, like we have for hundreds of these, fire it off, live to fight another day. That's where I always go. I go, as soon as we start getting too much into something, we go, let's get out. Because if I make this podcast or not, it's not going to move the needle. But if I don't do it, I start losing on, hey, the weekly podcast coming out. And so we just stick at it, much like everything.
And you should in your business. So this week's podcast, oh, man, there's so much going on. It's one thing, right? I talk with us a lot. Like, you are the brand of your company. You are the negative energy you put out there, the negative conversations you have. People, right or wrong, if you were right or wrong, they just see it as negative.
And I see a lot of negativity with mortgage brokers shitting on lenders, shitting on the branches, the banks, the big bad evil, putting people down instead of looking in the mirror and leveling up your own game. And so we're in a unique situation here. This comes around in cycles. For those who haven't been in this game long enough, this comes in cycles. The cycles are you're going to get your ass handed to you by the banks and the branches, even banks.
If you're with Scotiabank, the branch is going to beat you in a lot of deals. Same with TD. And you can't be like, I don't understand. I thought we were on the same team. Well, no, because they pay their internal banking team, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 basis points. They pay you 100, 127 with volume bonus on President's Club, even higher with efficiency bonus, like whatever those numbers are. So yeah, they can give lower rates in the branch. It doesn't make sense.
No. But I'll tell you this, nothing about the mortgage industry makes sense. The quicker you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be. I've known this for 10 plus years. I've been in this game for 15. This industry, it's backwards. It is so unsophisticated. It is so behind the times. It's so behind the times of the US. It's so behind the times for other industries. My wife, Jen, came in from executive recruitment, working with C-level executives.
And this isn't what the podcast is about, by the way, but we are going to talk about some things. But she came into this world and dealing with polished people and polished businesses, financial, you know, consumer packaged goods, financial services, HR, and it's like all buttoned up and the process is do, do, do, do, do. And then she came in here and started working. She's like, Ryan, this is a shit show. I'm like, yeah, I know.
She's like, the lenders live in a gray area and come out of left field and ask you for something. The you're clients, battling against the branch level plus Scotia or TD with your BDM against BRM, the branch. And it's internal. They have internal struggles. And then the software's nothing talking over here. Regulations are changed. She's like, this is a gong show. I'm like, yeah, I know.
I go, but guess what? If it wasn't such a shit show, a large percentage of mortgage brokers would be out of work because it would be so dialed in, they wouldn't need us. And so I want you to think about that for a second. Yeah, it's frustrating. It's a very stressful career. But we also can work from wherever you want, make as much money as you want. Now you just have to work harder for it. Oh, poor baby, you have to work hard now. Oh, muffin, right?
So I always tell my kids, oh, muffin, that's too bad. Why don't we like put our nose down and dig in? I know $100 million producers that are doing $20 million a year now. You know why? Because they're not evolving. And they got caught and they got lazy. And so a lot of you are getting crushed. And we used to get beat by 5, 10 basis points, 15. Now you're getting beat by 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. And here's the problem. It's a problem with our industry, but it's also a problem with you.
And you need to look in the freaking mirror. And yeah, I got a little energy right now. Okay. I'm coming at you because I'm seeing I'm not this. chiming in on any place because I'm building I got a shit. little energy right I'm now. coming Okay. at you because I'm seeing I'm not this. chiming in on any place because I'm building shit. I got stuff I'm building that's going to be fricking spectacular. I don't have time to chime. That's why I do it here. It's a one to many.
If I'm going into Facebook groups and texts, I'm talking people off to, ah, it's not best use of my time. That's not what I'm put on the planet for. I'm putting the planet to lead people, to make people's businesses better. And I can't do that like that. So that's why I'm doing it like this. And so you're getting crushed. You're getting crushed because you're reacting to stuff. What I mean by that is this. This is absolutely any of you. I don't care how well you think your business is.
If you're that arrogant that you think your business is so phenomenal, well you think your business is. If you're that arrogant that you think your business is so phenomenal, oh, wow, hey, like maybe you're a one-off. I mean, like, good for you. But I'm like, I'd love like shave off a slice of that for the rest of us. It's not the case. Everyone's getting destroyed in one way or another. And if it's not getting destroyed volume-wise, it's getting destroyed quality of life and time-wise.
The time it takes to put in the energy, the stress, the less you're present for the rest of your life. You're not a mortgage broker. You weren't put here to be a mortgage broker. It's not going to be written on your tombstone. Ryan Wiley, mortgage broker. No, that's not. Father, husband, right? It's going to be that. And so I need to know that's my number one. I need to make sure that's taken care of. I need to know I'm there. Then I build a business around it. A lot of you are reacting.
You are reacting. You are dealing with renewals. If you're looking for a renewal business, that's like the door you go knocking on. Be careful who answers the door. If you just go around looking for it, if you find trouble in any city, any city in the world, like, ah, there's no trouble here. It looks good. No, you, if you want to go find it, you can't. If you're a biker, Hells Angels, and you go into a city and you put that energy out, you're going to find trouble.
I don't know why I picked Hells Angels, but I did. Okay. You're going to find that. And so a lot of you are looking for that energy. You're looking for the renewal energy. And so you get that back and guess what? Ah, now you're having the calls. And now guess what? Your client's coming in. Now you're talking price and product. You're trying to cut down the lender they're with. And you're trying to like say, well, you shouldn't go there. You should come over with me.
And a lot of you are living old school where you're thinking your best awesome customer service is going to build your business. Back in the day, and I'm talking like three, four, five years ago, 10 years ago, you could build a very, very nice business with great customer service. Now, someone's going to wipe the floor with you at some point. It's a matter of time before you have to up your game. And unfortunately, not a lot of you are.
So if you're always reacting and you're dealing with renewals, I know if I'm looking for renewal business, I know that the type of energy that's coming to me means they're going to be an offer is going to be made to them. Okay. Hear me out. An offer might've already been made. An offer's coming through an online portal, through a phone call, through, and we get the discharge papers. They have to talk to them. An offer is going to be made.
So you're in competition for the renewal with teams that are trying to keep them. And you've got like all these people trying to keep this person. Then when you go in for purchases and if you say, hey, I'm looking for purchase business and blah, blah, blah. Perfect. You go down that path. They're going to talk to their bank at some point. Like I think we're at that stage now where everyone knows they're going to talk to the bank or they're talking online to somebody. So you're in competition.
So you're always reacting, right? And you're always going up against people. And if you don't have your value ads, a lot of you just aren't really good on your soft sales skills. And you can't even understand in 30 seconds or articulate what your value ads are. And it's not that I'm here and I pick up the phone and I'm this and I'm a good person and I send regular emails and stay in touch. Like, sure, that's okay. But is that going to justify a 40 basis point difference? Is it? Tell me.
Do you think it is you're lying to yourself? It's not going to happen. So you're playing in a reactive world. And so there's a saying that is don't hate the player, hate the game. You're playing a game right now and you're hating the player, the players, the bank and the branch and the people who are beating you. And you're hating and you're shitting on them. You're like, ah, it's like, no, look in the mirror. Come on, look in the mirror. It's the game. You have to change the game.
So if I'm always looking for the people who are always going to be having offers put up against them, this is a time and place where you have to think outside the box. You have to think differently. You have to get away from price and product. You have to work on refinances. And yeah, what do you do? You're restructuring debt. You're coming up with different scenarios, showing people how to restructure their debt and why they should do it. Is it to build growth?
Is it for debt consolidation? Is it to buy investment properties? Is it to top up their RSPs? Is it to take tax advantages? You should have these strategies. You should understand them. Or you can just keep going into it and being really nice on the phone and making buddy-buddy with them and thinking, this is all good. They're sending the application in. We get down. You're like, just skipping down the road. I think Wizard of Oz, I'm dating myself there. Off to see the wonderful Wizard of Oz.
And then they're like, yeah, we're not going to do, we got to offer a cashback in Avion points. And you're like, son of a bitch. Right? This is happening. And then what do you revert back to? Oh, well, yeah, but they're compounded daily or monthly and blah. And the IRD, the posted rate could be worse. And the prepayment privileges, even though no one uses those really, isn't as good. And you start like scrambling. And then you're like, really?
I don't really know why I'd work with myself for 30 basis points. Difference, $500,000 mortgage, like $1,500 a year, five years, $7,500. How do I make that up? I don't know. You tell me. Would you work for yourself for 20 basis point or premium? Would you? Would you? Like, what's the other thing you're doing? And so it's crazy that we are in an industry where we are not held accountable, where we have to always be sharpening the knife, our skills on how to save our clients money.
We get into this industry with a joke of a course, we get thrown into some brokerage that doesn't know what the hell they're doing. And even if they do, good for you, you figured that out, they know where to place a deal, but they're not showing you where to get business. And so you're scrambling, you're on an island, and you keep on going. And you keep on plugging. And then guess what, it comes up to renew your license. And you take a two year course.
And you say, or every two years, you take a 40 minute multiple choice question. I've done so many of these. I don't even know what was in the thing. You're just like speed reading and like B, C, A, D, E, F, right? There's no strategies in there to help you save your client money, to be an expert on what you do. And then you pay your 750 and you pay the cash cow and you carry on, you back out in the wilderness and you've got a pocket knife and you're starving and you're like,
where the frick do I go? Should I eat that berry? I don't know. It looks wild to me. Let's let Johnny over here eat it. Right. And we'll see what happens to him. And you're sitting there going, I don't know, where do we get the deals? What do we do? What do we do? Oh, 30 B. I wouldn't work with us. This industry sucks. It's only a matter of time, right? And you start spiraling. And that's where we're at right now. That's where we're at. And unfortunately, the industry is not going to help you.
All of you are on an island. And the ones who have made it so far, you've figured some things out and you've been resourceful, which has been great. But you still have to keep going and up in your game. A lot of us just sit on our hands and we wait for deals. And then the deal comes in and we have a conversation and we get an application and we lose the deal. And we're sitting there going, oh shit, this sucks. This industry sucks. The banks are screwing us. It's not the case. Up your game.
I have a hard time referring people out in this industry. There's only so many people I would actually refer people and put my name on it too, because I know they've their game. I know they are absolute experts at what they do and they will show the client how to save money. I don't care about getting it financed. I'm not talking about that. If you're an underwriting ninja, phenomenal, great, good for You're you. going to get some deals I'm done. not talking about If that.
you're an underwriting ninja, phenomenal, great, good for you. You're going to get some deals done. I'm talking about the people where it's me against CIBC, RBC, show me how to sit, show me the money. Jerry Maguire style. How are we going to do it? But a lot of you just sit back and you're like, no. And then you end up inevitably battling it out, which you're going to lose nine times out of 10.
Once in a while, you win, you cut all your commission out, you throw in legals, you throw in this and you leave it and you're stressed out and then you bring that home. And then you don't know where the money is coming from, but instead of trying to up your game and be better, more of an expert. How can I strategically get better and not have conversations about product and price? I'm inevitably going to have some of those conversations.
But how do I figure out a way to go after the people who aren't being pitched, who aren't being sent offers, the renewals and the purchases? How do I go after the refinances? People are sitting there thinking they're good. How can I explain to them there's a better way to do X, Y, and Z?
There's a better way to increase your net worth, to retire quicker, to be mortgage-free faster, to get more money from CRA to pay your mortgage off, to do X, Y, Z. That's what I need to do because the people who are doing that are not having the same conversations you are over here. Where you're grinding away, getting extremely frustrated, and you're frustrating everybody around you. So, unfortunately, that's the industry we're in. Where you are on a freaking island. You are.
Nobody is sitting there teaching you these advanced strategies now obviously i have a coaching company i have a training company we do some of this stuff that's not why i'm here talking to you about this this is me just going like i recognized in my career halfway through that i don't want to be the person that does that and i'm trying to always sort through 40 things to find the good five or six deals and have underwriters on my team and
fulfillment and call intake people and manage four or five people and all their personalities and payroll to sort through all the shit to find the people that I can help. I'm just going to go find the people I love working with. And it's going to be around doing a refinance. They need me to get to where they want to go. And I'm going to point out you have a problem, a problem they don't realize yet. And if I get good at that, then they will work with me for the premium.
Because they can go to RBC, but they don't get me. So you've heard me talk about all this in the avatar. And this is just me sitting in the back. I'm in the back eating popcorn. I'm eating popcorn and I'm seeing, and here's the thing. I can't save everyone. I cannot save everyone. I can't. I'm not even going to save any of you on this call or this podcast. I'm not. It's not what this is about. This is about just, I want you to go into this with eyes wide open.
Right? This isn't anyone else's This is about I want you to go into fault. this with eyes wide just, right? open, This isn't anyone else's fault. It's not your team your broker your you the licensing lead, body. owner, network, know, It's it's your like, fault. it's, Everything comes back to you much like a deal itself. It's interesting. We had, I was on a training call and a guy came on who I have mad respect for and he came in and we were talking about the strategy call.
So this is when you have a live deal, like it's actual refinance, ready to go, submit to a lender, or here's the APS MLS, let's jump on a call. And you jump in, I walked him through how we did it, where we'd walk him through the budget and then we'd show him different offers from different lenders on the paper, we'd get them down to like one option to choose from.
And he brought up a point, he's like, Hey, Ryan, because of where we're at right now, early in the pre approval process that when I first pre approved him, I send them the budget and outline the offers for them. Like, here's what you're pre approved for. Here's all your numbers. I actually put the side I go, here's my pre approval for you. Here's RBC. And he's like, so I actually if that side. I here's go, my pre-approval for you.
Here's RBC. And he's so I if that's their like, I find out actually, who they're banking with. bank, And then I here's what we're seeing with go, RBC. This is their offer if you went there. And his rationale I don't was, want them going into the bank. I'm just going to show them the rate already. He says, so it's far, been working. And I'm it's interesting. like, OK, So there's two things with this. It's interesting because I get it. To some degree, I like it.
I'm going to throw, I know you bank with RBC, Tom. That's why I threw that here, RBC, right beside my pre-approval. And you can see the interest rate. I think that's too early to have a conversation because it's still a pre-approval and they might not buy for seven months, right? I encourage them to go on. But here's the thing. You've already, from day one, turned the conversation back to price and product because you're showing what they have and what you have.
And the only difference you're showing is the interest rate. So that's my major flaw with that idea. But this just tells me, and this is a smart broker, by the way, knows what he's doing, thinks outside the box, love how he does, how he brokers. He's going to that. So I'm like, what's the average mortgage broker going to? I'm like, oh God, this is, this is going to be bad. This is going to be bad. You are going to get swallowed up and spit out.
And so I always come back to, man, change how, the conversation. That's all you should swallowed up and spit And out. so I always come back to, how man, change the conversation? That's all you should be trying to figure out. How do I change the conversation? What are my 10 questions? I might not go through them all. There might be two, three, four, five. Maybe I use two here, three here, four there.
I've given you so many of these questions, but the ones I'm seeing who are crushing it now are the ones who are changing the conversation. Now, would you rather work with people who didn't real thought they were good with their mortgage, you present a scenario to them, and they go, huh, interesting. And guess what the outcome is your mortgage free four years faster, payments don't increase. Do you want to talk? And they're like, yeah, let's talk.
Boom, you present it to them, you get their application. You run through. You're going to save them $200,000, $80,000, $300,000 because you've learned the strategy. You've learned how to sell it. You've learned how to position it. You've learned how to take hooks out of it. You've learned to talk about that and only that. What do you think is going to happen? That's who you're going to be working with. It's going to change the conversation. Could they go back to the bank? Sure.
If you're not going to execute any of the plan for them, right? I'm not going to lay it out like step by step. I'm going to go, hey, this is the plan. So we talked about a plan in our last training, and it's called a ladder strategy. And other people call it a cascade strategy. And it's not my strategy. It's what I've learned, right? Some of these things I come up with myself and put into practice and I talk about and train on. This one I did not, but we are going to train on.
We are building tools around it. But I'm going to lay out very quickly what the strategy is. And it's up to you to decide if you think that would be a great tool to have in your toolbox. It's something we're going to be teaching on, I think, September 11th. We have a renewal boot camp, a virtual one. Yeah, you don't have to fly anywhere. You don't have to meet us. Do it virtually. We're going to do it.
We're going to give you three, four strategies you can use, not just for renewal, but at refinance and purchases and all that stuff. So this is a cascade one. I'm going to fly through it fast. Before I do, this podcast is brought to you by H2O with a little salt in there for some electrolytes. H2O with a little salt in there for some electrolytes. so let's say it's Okay, an uninsured deal, and let's just say the loan devalues whatever, 70%. Okay, I'm just going to use easy math. Let's go 80%.
80%, you set them up $500,000 mortgage. Okay, put them in a step program. Now they pay down the mortgage, and let's say after the first year there and let's is, say you put them in a step Now program. they pay down the And mortgage. let's say after the first year there is, and let's say you put them in a five-year fixed, this is going to allow you to get all the benefits of a fixed plus interest rates are coming down. So you're going to be able to get lower interest rates as well.
And we can also get your payments lower as well. If you need that extra cashflow throughout your five-year term, they're going to be like, yeah, I want all that. All the benefits of all of it, zero downside. Yeah. I'm going to show you how. So half a million dollar mortgage, they pay down there. Let's just say I'm using numbers here. They pay their mortgage down $30,000. Okay. So they have 30,000 becomes available on the home equity line.
So at the end of year one, you have in your calendar, you reach out and you go, Hey, it's time to do this now for this year. They go and they take the 30K that's available on the HELOC. Doesn't matter what the interest rate is on the HELOC, does not matter. They take it and they prepay the mortgage down. So instead of 470, because we went from five, paid it down to 470 after year one, you're going to prepay it down to 430 or 440.
Okay. And you'll carry, so 440 at the five-year fixed number, and you'll have 30K in the HELOC. And then you're going to go in, you're going to lock the HELOC number, the 30K in the HELOC into a four, you're going to align it with the remaining term into a four-year fixed. Because the four-year fixed has come down. The fixed rates have come down over that year. That's when this strategy works. So you start dollar cost averaging in lower interest rates. Then year two, you do the same thing.
And year three and year four. And then guess what? If they want lower payments because if something came up, X, Y, Z, lost a job, need cash or whatever, because it's with the preferred lender you have, you can re-amortize the payments. You can bring the payment back up to 30 years. But they're getting all these interest rates averaged in lower interest rates. And if I talk too fast there, go back and listen. So imagine you had some of those 60% loan to value.
They're going to, out of the gate, after year one, they're going to be able to maximize their prepayment privilege. So in that example I gave you, let's just say they had 300K mortgage, and they had a 200K or even 100K HELOC.
Well, 20% prepayment on the 300, that's 60 pulled a 60 000 off the heloc they would have paid it down as well but you get what i'm saying right this wasn't a podcast on teaching you the inner workings of this stuff this is stuff we train on and teach on and coach on this stuff that everyone on my team and yeah i said my team and i'll talk about that next month everyone on my team is going to know this strategy inside out.
This is part of, as a team lead, coaching and mentoring on strategies showing you how to save the client money and change the conversation from product and price to restructuring debt and how they win. This is what we should be learning. But instead, we're not. We've been bamboozled into learning all these other lender products. And we've been thrown into lunch and learns and trips and go to this event and go over here and do this and these golfing days and go do that.
And it's just like, it's like drugging us. We're like, ah, so many products, so awesome. And then you're like, but I have no clients. I have no clients and I'm not even an expert. I'm an expert at understanding some of these products and where to place a deal once in a while and which lender to go with, which is a part of our job description. So that's cool. But I'm not an expert at saving my client money. I'm an expert at getting an approval that I'll ultimately lose.
Ah, there should be like some light bulbs going off and on here. There should be. They're going off for me. So this is what I wanted to talk about. I'm going to keep talking about that here and there. Oh, man, I don't know if there's a moral to the story here. You know, don't hate the player. Hate the game.
You know, there's a moral to the story here you know donate the player hate the game you know that's kind of where i go with this this isn't their thing this is a you thing as i tell my kids all the time this is a you thing um but and i'm here to help i'm here to help you figure it out though but this isn't you thing it's nothing else okay the reason you only have so much money your bank account is because of you. It's not because RBC gave your client $5,000.
We had a call like this on one of our last training. And you'll know who you are if you're listening and it's nothing against you. This is like 99% of brokers are like this. It is, hey, I lost the deal and I got undercut and I lost my 30, 40 basis points. So I always reverse engineer that. And they're like, Ryan, what could I have done? And I'm like, well, I don't know exactly how we got here. But if I reverse engineer it, and I go, okay, what sort of handholding did you do? Did you present?
Did you I go right to the beginning? I go, okay, did you tell them that you're going to ask for a commitment to work with you and get their word? Did you show them snippets of what you do? Did you present after the pre-approval certain scenarios where they might be able to save money on their taxes or top up their RSPs or pull money out to invest here or write stuff off because you did this here or the ladder down strategy here? Like, did you present that stuff? And then did you actually ask for
the commitment? And did they tell you, yeah, you're our guy, you're our girl, let's go. And then they go out and shop. And then did you jump on a strategy call with them, where you're eye to eye with them, and you're going through the final budget, and you're answering, and they're coming up going, hey, RBC is giving me this now. And you're like, cool, remember, you gave your word. Plus, we're also going to be using this strategy here. And so we're going to make that money back.
And then some plus you get me in, like, have you done all that? And the answer is always no. Or it's, I did this or this, but I didn't do that, that, that. So I tell you, most of the times when you lost the deal, you lost it at the beginning. You had already lost it. You were always going to lose that deal, right? So that's a process thing you need to pick up at the beginning. I'd rather know if I'm going to work with this client in the first half hour or not.
And so, but I have to arm myself with these expert strategies. And if I'm not, then what am I doing? I'm just pushing paper, walking around going, I've got 30 lenders. Come work with me. I'll get a deal done. But you can get one better yourself if you walk into the branch, even though you're not an expert. But I'm an expert. I'll get deals done for you, right? Like when you say that out loud, it's actually pretty embarrassing. It's kind of like, oh yeah, yeah,
I get it, right? And so I'm a little spicy on this one. You can tell. And it's, it's been a bill not for a bit, right? And I saved the spiciness for this. So I want to leave you with that, okay? I'm going to end this podcast. I hope you got some from that. I hope you're just signing up your game and not just renewing your license every two years and taking that course. I hope you're actually looking for ways to save your clients money and not all maximize prepayment privileges, right?
And I'll do that. Like the people who figured it out, they're not having the problems you are, but they've upped their game. Okay. Takes time, time to do that. And the will that you want to do and get better at it. I don't know any other career where you don't have to consistently up your game. Like FAs, they're constantly being shown new strategies. They're constantly doing, going through training, shown new strategies. They're constantly doing going through training, very extensive training.
They're constantly having new certifications. We are not. It's complete bullshit. But this is the world we chose to be in. As my wife said, this is a gong show. That's it, kids. Peace out. you