The official first day of spring aside, there’s plenty of signs that spring is here; for example the weather.  The weather is a favorite conversation piece for Canadian’s.  Is it hot enough for you?  Is it cold enough for you?  Of course if you live in Ontario you can’t mention temperatures without referencing wind-chill factor or the humidex, it really feels like, (fill in the appropriate number).  It’s a weather inferiority complex that people of Ontario suffer from.  It always has to be colder or hotter, irrespective of where anyone else lives in Canada.  Oh hell, the entire world.  So I won’t go on about the temp’s but it does really feel like spring.  Plenty of sunshine and some golf courses are opening up.  Speaking of golf, you know spring is here once the Masters Golf tournament comes to an end.  It’s always sign for me that in very short order I will get a chance to work on my ulcer and ask myself why I like to play this stupid game.  Greatest book tittle I ever came across was, “Golf, A Good Walk Spoiled”.   My spring internal radar is a little off given that the Toronto Maple Leafs are about to qualify for the NHL play-offs.  The mind and body needs time to adjust to that shock because play-off hockey for the local team is foreign in these parts.  But the surest sign that spring is here is the level of activity in our industry.

Try as big brother might, it’s hard to keep a good industry down.  Sure, there’s been an impact because of the regulatory changes but you can tell by the recent vibrancy in the industry that we will all find a way to make things work.  The “we” I’m referring to is the collective “we”.  The activity levels, as well as the results, have picked up at MERIX.  No magic reason why.  It’s as simple as saying, “enough with the focusing on what we can’t control, and only focusing on what we can”.  It’s amazing what happens when everyone starts to buy into that.  Crutches and excuses are discarded, and the focus and conversations are squarely directed at solutions and innovation.  That’s contagious, and everyone can feed off of that.  Kudos to our communications department who came up with the MERIX 30 days of innovation.  It’s a fun way to connect with our customers, the mortgage brokers, for 30 days in a row in the hopes that we can bring some ideas that may assist our customers.  On Monday we launched our first video, and based on the feedback we’ve received already…I think we’re on the right track.  In the event that you missed it, here’s the video.  And here’s to a great spring market, and here’s bringing our attention to  what we can control.

Until next time,

Cheers.