Comments on: Public Awareness: Mortgage Industry

By: Jason Krist

Jason Krist — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:03:48 +0000

Boris, I enjoyed reading this. I have long felt that a “National” campaign to raise awareness to the consumer would be excellent! From broker to broker, to lender, to insurer etc… within’ the industry, we owe it to our customers, clients (and ourselves) to maintain best practices from start to finish in each transaction!
I agree with what Michael has said as well, and feel that “raising our collective level of professionalism” within the industry will go a very long way in assisting with a campaign in raising the awareness to the consumer of the very valuable role the Mortgage Broker Industry provides.
I believe each of us brokers have a professional responsibility to not only be “better” to ourselves and consumers, but to each other as brokers. I believe that being better and educating each other in “best practices” will also go a long way into raising the collective level of professionalism within’ the industry!

By: Michael Cameron

Michael Cameron — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:36:53 +0000

Great comment! This is a fantastic discussion. I agree wholeheartedly and look forward to working together to achieve both goals.

1) Raising awareness
2) Raising our collective level of professionalism.

Count me in!

By: Boris Bozic

Boris Bozic — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:18:59 +0000

Hi Michael,
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I agree with your comments as it relates to raising the level of professionalism in our industry. It should be an never ending goal that we should all pursue. However, the reality is that every industry faces the challenge of varying degrees of expertise and competency. Be it lawyers, doctors, plumbers, engineers, brokers, lenders, insurers etc, every field must deal with reputational risk due to incompetence. Maybe some of the issues we face are more pronounced, but the issues are not exclusive to the broker industry only. Therefore, to delay an awareness campaign until a utopian state is reached will result in no campaign at all. An awareness campaign will serve two purposes, making potential borrowers aware of what we do, and planting a seed to those that may have never considered our industry as a possible career. Our industry has to find ways to attract the brightest, and those with higher skill set levels. If we’re successful in that regard it will contribute to raising the level of professionalism in our industry. I believe an investment in this regard is sound and prudent. At the very least it should be considered and explored.

By: Michael Cameron

Michael Cameron — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:51:44 +0000

While I think that raising awareness is a necessary endeavor, I also think that we need to get better at what we do as a collective first. If we are going to raise awareness than we better be damn good at what we do. Today, we are not.

This comes back to raising the professionalism, integrity and quality of all of us in the channel. If we spend $7 million (pick a number) to raise consumer awareness and the consumer calls ‘a’ broker who happens to be part time, untrained and unskilled, then you can kiss that investment in raising awareness goodbye.

We have a fundamental problem with the channel that is far greater than a lack of consumer awareness and I believe that needs to be addressed first (or at least in parallel to raising awareness). I applaud all who are trying to increase awareness and again think that it is important, but even more important is raising the level of service that we deliver as a channel.

Lenders have acknowledged it by being selective on who they will deal with. I don’t think there is a lender out there that will deal with all 16-18,000 brokers in the channel. I love what we do and am passionate about driving us forward. I am more than willing to work with all that share that passion and professionalism. There are a lot of great brokers out there and we just have to come together to get better as a channel.