Planning for your mortgage

With the challenges in the mortgage world over the last few years, I’ve had a few people ask if I am still enjoying my work.

It’s a fair question as there are many days I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle, but the truth of the matter is I absolutely love what I do.

I had a call with a young couple last week that reminded me why I enjoy helping people with their mortgage financing.

I helped this couple buy their first home about nine years ago, then helped them again with their renewal. They booked an appointment to chat about their future plans and asked how best to set themselves up for success.

After they brought me up to date with the renovations they’ve done to their home and the upcoming expansion of their young family, we spent an hour exploring different options and talking about which route would likely be the best for them. In their case we decided to wait until their renewal next summer before we make any changes.

I started my mortgage career with one of the big banks. We were always busy and tightly scheduled, so my meetings were all business. I didn’t have much opportunity to get to know my clients. My schedule did not allow for much social chit chat.

Interestingly, those conversations are what I enjoy most about my work. Being able to spend time with my clients, building a plan and creating a strategy around next steps is very rewarding.

I often have calls from clients who are almost apologetic because they aren’t ready to buy right away and are concerned about wasting my time. But I love these calls. Having the time to dive in and make sure clients are well organized to buy at some point down the road means we can outline concrete steps to help them get set up for success.

If you are starting to think about purchasing a home down the road I encourage you to connect with a mortgage professional sooner rather than later.

Taking time to learn about your options and the requirements for obtaining mortgage approval can help save much stress down the road and give you a clear goal to work towards.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.