TOP LENDERS
RMG Mortgages
MERIX/Lendwise
(Tie) MCAP, Manulife
TOP ALTERNATIVE LENDERS
(Tie) Haventree Bank, HomeEquity Bank, Hosper Mortgage
(Tie) CWB Optimum Mortgage, BlueShore Pacifica
(Three-way tie) Equitable Bank, ICICI, Bridgewater Bank
After ranking as the top category for lender performance in 2018, BDM support gained some ground in average score in 2020 but ranked as lenders’ second best-performing category for the second year in a row. Responsiveness, excellent communi-cation and efficiency were the most common areas of praise from brokers for their lenders’ BDMs. One broker described their BDM as “by far the best in the industry.” Another said: “My BDM always answers my calls and is so supportive. I love sending deals to Equitable thanks to him.”
It seems many brokers feel that way about Equitable Bank, which earned the bronze medal in alternative lending alongside ICICI and Bridgewater Bank. There was also a three-way tie for gold and a two-way tie for silver among the alternative lenders. For the A lenders, RMG Mortgages climbed from bronze in 2019 to take gold this year with a score of 4.83. MERIX/Lendwise nabbed silver for BDM support for the second year in a row, while MCAP and Manulife tied for bronze.
Many brokers mentioned BDMs when asked about the best thing a lender had done for them over the past 12 months. “My BDM worked behind the scenes to get a line of credit approved,” said one broker. “My BDM has assisted with mining my database to find opportunities that I wouldn’t have identified without their support,” reported another.
But other brokers weren’t as enthusiastic about the support they’re receiving. Among the pointed criticism were comments like “underwriting policies not correctly inter-preted by the BDM assigned to our office,” “limited knowledge on own platform/prod-ucts,” “BDMs not picking up the phone” and “[our] assigned BDM always feels like she is working against me instead of with me.”
