Industry updates with TMG's SVP

00:00.85
keymedia
Hello again and thanks for joining us on another edition of CMP Talk. I'm Fergal McAlinden, news editor at Canadian Mortgage Professional and today we'll once again, be speaking with a prominent member of Canada's mortgage space on some of the major issues in the industry so far this year as well as getting an insight into what's happening in their world. My guest today needs little introduction: Veronica Love is senior vice president of corporate development at Tmg the mortgage group and has recently been named as vice chair of mortgage professionals Canada. Becoming the fourth woman in the organization's 27 year history to hold that title Veronica. Thanks for joining us today. How are things with you? Yeah, awesome. It's it's great to have you? Um, how have things been for you.

01:24.11
Veronica Love
They're fantastic. It's Friday it's sunny. Ah nothing to complain about in my world. Thanks for having me here today.

01:35.34
keymedia
And terms of the industry so far this year on for Tmg obviously.

01:36.95
Veronica Love
Well, it's been another crazy year I you know it's funny. We were just having this conversation. Ah a good friend of mine Megan Mcdonald and I were having a conversation about how the average average conversation I'm having with people in the industry right now you know, especially busy brokers is they.

01:48.34
keymedia
My.

01:55.88
Veronica Love
Are a little bit burnt out but feel guilty saying so you know the sales cycle is is one of Ups and downs. So. It's been a lot of ups and people feel bad complaining about especially during a pandemic but you know I think it's really important to go. That's okay to say hey. That has been a crazy hectic 2 3 hree years and volumes have been incredibly high across the board and we're now seeing you know a little bit of burnout from that. But I think it's okay to admit and to not feel guilty about you know, needing to have a bit of a pause. Or needing to bring some more joy into your life and not just work. It's been a lot of work. But I mean that's a positive thing to say we have been incredibly busy at Tmg the mortgage group. Been another record breaking year in 2021. In fact, we were up another 40% year over year which is just astonishing every year seems to be crushing the last we're celebrating 32 years in the mortgage industry this year and so it's really nice to see that we're still continuing to break. 30 irty plus year records which is incredible. So no complaints here. It's been an incredible journey over the past couple years. But yeah, it's been a busy one.

03:08.12
keymedia
I yeah congrats on that from a Tmg point of view. Um, just just on the subject of broker berout I mean 1 thing that I always hear whenever I'm talking to brokers and agents and I ask them about what the market's been like it's always clear that you know things are great from a business side but that's not always necessarily. You know the best for them personally? um, but I mean are you expecting the market's going to continue at this pace throughout the year or are you anticipating any kind of letup.

03:36.97
Veronica Love
Oh gosh if only I had a crystal ball. What I will tell you is we do a ton of market analysis. So far this you know q 1 is ahead year over year so how crazy is that we did see a tiny slowdown in applications in q four so we thought maybe it was going to slow down. But we've already seen a huge pickup and I don't know what to say about 2022 but it's off to another record breaking start for us and I've talked to colleagues across you know all brands in the industry and it seems to be similar for most I think. If you've spent any time over the past couple years reconnecting with your database reconnecting with your referral partners. You're going to have another fantastic year. It'll be interesting to see you know with some rate hikes that are coming up but I even think with rates going up which clearly they are. We're going to see more buyers wanting to get in. Rates are still incredibly low now. The media's going to work in our disservice and also in our service a little bit by creating some frenzy. So I think that the demand is still going to be very high. We're obviously going to have low supply. That's going to be a problem for some time and I think that's the biggest obstacle for this industry and for teamg the mortgage group but the market activity is still very strong and it's looking like it's going to be another banner year.

04:54.59
keymedia
So it's interesting that you mentioned some of the research that you've been doing that that sounds really interesting. Are there any kind of trends that you've noticed or even apart from that that that you've been noticing in the industry so far this year

05:06.70
Veronica Love
The biggest trend I've seen is some market areas and this has been fun over the past year that are the hottest and Tmg. The mortgage group is completely national so we have agents from St. John's Newfoundland all the way to Victoria so we have a good scope across the nation where these busy markets are. And it's been really fun to see our friends in Atlantic canada shine we have a very strong presence in Atlantic Canada we do one in every 4 mortgages there and so we have huge market share in Atlantic Canada when I was a lender previous to join the tmg family. It was one of my favorite poems. Portfolios to service some of the nicest brokers in the country and the humblest and and just work hard. They always had to work harder because they to do more units to come up with the volume that the average agent across Canada would do but this is their moment to shine. So I'm seeing some trends where certain market areas like Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia but our friends across Atlantic Canada are really seeing the trend of people leaving the gta market and looking for new homes or second homes or investment properties and we're seeing that in other market areas as well. I just you know wanted to do a shout out to my Atlantic Canada friends and say enjoy it. You know relish it. We're seeing a lot move to Alberta too. Interprovincial brokering is one of the biggest trends I've seen it's now like a hotter topic than ever before making great referral partners in other provinces or working with a brokerage that allows you to do interprovincial deals the right way I think is going to be a. Key key importance over the last you next little while because I think we're going to seek continued movement across the country of people seeking out new homes because home means more than it is ever meant before and you can see this too I mean shut out whole of our friends in Colonna I think per capita there's more of. My mortgage friends have moved to cologna for the past two years as well. But everybody is looking for. You know that home away from home or their primary home to be in a place that is you know more? So. Servant to their needs if they're having to be locked down again. Are you near the water. Can you go for a nice walk on the trails like do you have the scenery that you want and I think we're going to continue to see some of those trends happen until the return to work and until the gta in the Greater Vancouver area starts to flourish again. So the biggest trend I've seen is that interprovincial deals hot market areas in places that weren't traditionally hot. Um, yeah and I think you know what? that's there's a lot of positivity around that too.

07:41.38
keymedia
Yeah, it's it's gonna be so interesting to see what happens with that. You know the so-called urban Exodus which has happened throughout the last couple years of the pandemic people you know, upping sticks from Toronto or Vancouver and and heading it to more remote areas. So we know that you know return to office efforts are are kind of. Coming back into full force. We're back in the office two days a week so it'll be so interesting to see what the future of that trend is going to be you know going going forward. Um.

08:07.77
Veronica Love
It will I think one of the major pluses is whether it's a you know mortgage agent finding ways to do business with clients in other provinces or or not having to meet them face-to-face. Even if they're in their own local market area covid and this pandemic and and you know all the lessons we've learned through it has given us the possibility of. Working remotely and so I've seen a ton of people even within the province of Ontario move to more remote areas than they ever did before because they don't have to do the daily commute so going into the office a couple times a week is a lot less painful than having to do it every single day in traffic that is up to 2 hours long so I I think with that. Trend will continue for sure.

08:46.98
keymedia
So let me ask you about something Veronica that you mentioned a little bit earlier and and that was the kind of coast-to coast aspect of Tmg. Um I mean I guess that was probably you know challenging even in pre- pandemic times. But with obviously you know office work not permitted for a. But lot of the pandemic and and things like that. Um, how has the company managed to so successfully operate that coast to coast team of brokers and agents.

09:13.34
Veronica Love
Well I think that's another nice bonus to this virtual world. We're in I almost feel more connected with our agents nationally than I did prior to the pandemic. Ah, we really hate to use the word pivoted but I'm using it I'm pivoted fast and adapted in a couple different ways and I'll talk about some of that later. But. Most importantly, getting connected with all of our agents across the country was at our forefront and we jumped on doing more national training than we've ever done before so prior to that teamg is a very different model than anybody else in the industry we have a lot of area vice presidents who service the agents of their region. And we were very much in silos working and and in those regions and then the national team would collaborate but regionally those agents were very tight family units but maybe not so much nationally with the exception of our national conference once a year you know they very seldom got to see each other well now they're seeing each other weekly. And new friendships and relationships and brain trust and um, you know collaboration is happening across the country but 1 of the things teamgcorpo did one of the things our head office did was we ramped up with our growth came the fact that we had a lot of new agents joining us. And then the agents who were already with us were producing more than ever before. So the need for support was greater than ever before and we really pride ourselves on being a full service support brokerage and so we hired we hired a lot of new staff. Um I meant to count for today fergo. But I think it's around 10 new. Ah, family members have joined our head office team. We hired 2 amazing women in the province of Bc to lead the agents in bc remove obstacles help with lender relations help with brainstorming on marketing and business generation. We hired an amazing woman in Ontario who has taken over part of the province of Ontario so in some provinces we have 3 people servicing our agents and that's not to mention our entire payroll team which we've ramped up so we have quite an extensive payroll and onboarding team. We hired a personal um broker relations person almost like a personal concierge to your business who audits your business helps. You re connect with your clients. It helps you get over those hurdles like if you're stuck at the 10000000 Mark and you just don't know how to surpass it she spends time with you brainstorming ways that you can reignite your business tapping into some tools that maybe you weren't using or creating some efficiencies that you weren't tapping into as well.

11:43.32
Veronica Love
So We really ramped up on the Support. We didn't want to get lost with the fact that we were growing Tremendously. We didn't want any of our agents to feel like we moved away from the full support model so we ramped Up. We have an incredible team. That is working day in day out to help our agents do more business and to do it without burning out which is a key element as well. So yeah, National training Coast to coast more training than we've ever done before and definitely on the regional level. We've really ramped up as well.

12:12.91
keymedia
Okay, and then I'm I'm guessing that the extra component really is technology which has obviously been such a massive. It's played such a massive role in the industry over the past couple of years um how important has technology been in that performance that you mentioned and I mean what role do you think that it's. And play in the future for the industry.

12:31.39
Veronica Love
I feel like we had a crystal ball I feel so fortunate and blessed. We got really fortunate with the timing. We've been implementing working on a technology platform for deal processing for months prior to the pandemic breaking out. It was in pilot groups with our brokers. They were giving us feedback helping us build and shape it and we launched it first of March Twenty Twenty how ironic is that I remember my last meeting was like the Twelfth of March before the world shut down and I will say it is probably 1 of the main reasons. That we are up 40% year over year and trending and breaking records hurricane is our deal processing system that we've put a lot of passion and time into it is takes the client's experience to a next level with mortgages the feedback from clients has been incredible. They feel like the mortgage process is. Smoother and more secure than ever before. So we have a client portal on that platform clients are able to upload all their documentation to it and view it at any time even post deal. Um, so they can see exactly what the broker sees the broker logs in on their end and they get to see all the documentation and then start to scrub the documentation to make sure this. Deal see what's missing make sure Docs are in good standing for an underrater to you. They're not blurry or blacked out or cropped wrong. Um, it helps manage large files you can with a click in a drag separate huge huge 72 page docs and separate them and rename them and label them. So it's been an underator's dream. The feedback we've gotten from lenders has just been incredible teamg very much prides ourselves on high efficiencies with our lender partners and this has helped us continue to maintain that. In fact, increase it our our efficiencies have gone up during the pandemic as our volumes has. Which I am really proud of because that's not an easy balance to maintain so I'm really proud of the technology component. We've reinvested into our crm. Um, we have some really cool technology platforms that are about to launch that I can't talk about today but they're coming out in the next couple months and and there's a big focus. 2022 and beyond on the technology side for us. We believe in working smarter not harder and it will counter the burnout factor I think this is going to allow agents to continue to increase their volumes increase their business service their clients in an effective way. Without burning out and without having to hire a ton of resources maintaining you know 1 or 2 assistants and a really good technology platform is going to be key moving forward. So we're we're game on this is probably one of the things you can hear in my voice we're so excited about at Tmg.

15:20.26
Veronica Love
And yes I feel a little bit blessed that we launched it when we did and that we continue to improve upon it every week

15:23.87
keymedia
Okay, that's that's Berlin um, we were talking about burnout a little bit earlier and and how that's been a challenge for brokers and agents veronica um I know that you're talking with you know brokers on the agents every day as part of your job. What have been some of the main concerns that you've been hearing about their. Work as a mortgage professional this year and anything that they're you know particularly worried about.

15:45.87
Veronica Love
Yeah, you know what when I first um was thinking about our conversation I was thinking the same old for every agent lack of inventory those concerns but it's not really what I'm hearing from agents. In fact, you know that's why I brought up the burnout factor. And we've been hearing that for a while now I think year one of even the pandemic combined with the fact that our volumes were so up and we were so busy but overlying and whether you're you know too busy to think about it. We're stressed. We're stressed at the fear of getting sick. Our family's getting sick. Um, the up and down roller coaster of the restrictions and knowing what to do and how to behave to keep yourself safe and keep your family safe and keep your colleagues safe some of our agents have offices how to run offices. how how to you know make sure that they're safe for your clients and for your teams. So. That was a big factor early on in this pandemic. So Tmg really invested in wellness and how did we do that? Um, we leaned on a good friend bangkawa who's an industry favorite for a long time now. Um, you know I worked with him for years and years and years in his previous role at 1 of our major lenders and he has pivoted and and reshaped his life and and business to become an expert in wellness and I don't I won't do it justice for all the things he's brought to us but he is leading us in a series of. Videos and information on all aspects of the wellness wheel as we call it to counter the burnout factor and to make sure that we're not just focused on volume in units. That's not everything in life and and Tmg definitely didn't want to lead our agents down a path where all we care about is their production. We care about their well-being we call ourselves Tmg family for a reason we want to know if you're dealing with something at home. We want to know if your spouses or your children are we want to help you overcome those personal obstacles so that your business doesn't suffer and there's not this, you know vicious so cycle in your life of um of. When one area gets down everything goes down so Ben has been an incredible infusion of balance back into our business. We have these amazing meetings monthly where we just jump on Zoom and we talk through struggles we're going through but we share best practices. We share. You know whether it is air purifiers in your home or the impact of plants especially through the gloomy months of winter we talk about rest. We talk about eating well we talk about the impact of getting out of your chair and going and um, walking and getting some fresh air.

18:25.37
Veronica Love
And we started this last year in may when we did a campaign called 50 k in may and we challenged all of the Tmg agents and we did this as a fundraiser for our partner charity breakfast club of Canada because they were so needy like all charities are during this pandemic and we challenged every agent. Contribute a small donation Twenty five fifty dollars whichever you could spare but you had to complete fifty kilometers in the month of may and so it kind of kickstarted last spring where we started to say okay, we're so proud of you. You're doing great business. But now let's make sure that we are good and. All sides of our life not just in business. But I'm really proud of Tmg for investing in wellness and for continuing to keep that alive and well and the conversation growing and everybody supporting each other coast to coast on that.

19:15.42
keymedia
And absolutely it's such an important conversation topic in the industry I guess or such an important thing to be aware of especially in in these pandemic times to you know, be taking care of your health and wellness. So it's great to hear that Tmg is being focused on that for sure. Um, let me i.

19:29.76
Veronica Love
Absolutely.

19:34.49
keymedia
And spoke about this in my intro a little bit and I wanted to talk kind of switch focus to Npc I know that obviously it's recently you've recently rather been named as vice chair of that organization becoming as I said the fourth woman in its history to hold that role. Um. How have things been going with Npc since the election of the U board of directors and that must have been a you know? Ah very pride moment for you.

20:00.56
Veronica Love
Absolutely well. This is my second year involved in the board level I've been volunteering for many many years and proud of the work npc has been doing for our industry I will say the past couple of years has just been incredible for the work. The staff I have to give a shout out to the staff. You know the board comes and goes There's some incredible board members who have built upon the foundation of npc but the staff is so talented and so dedicated day in day out. Um, and they really bring to life the ideas that the board has um and they bring great ideas to the board and then implement them. So um. It couldn't be possible. All the things that npc is achieving right now for the industry you know a round of applause for that incredible and talented staff I'm very excited because even over the short time I've been a part of the board. The increase that we have seen in the government caring about our message. Been incredible. So you know kudos to Paul Taylor and Jp and and the entire team for getting us forefront and you know to the mps the local mps across the country aligning. Great brokers to meet with those mps and share what is really impacting homeownership in this country. And very at the regional level too which I think is so important I've done you know queens park and and a hill week and we're coming up upon a next hill week as well and they are fast and furious booking. So you know, amazing meetings for us. But I'm very so impressed with the. Care that the mps really have to hear our voice now more than ever memberships have the strongest it's ever been in continuing to grow so kudos to the entire industry for finally getting the power that we have as a collective voice and I encourage if you're not a member of Mpc please. Join in because we can do so much more with ah larger numbers. We have a better and bigger impact with the media and with our government if we have the numbers behind us I think other industries have done such a great job of this and so we need our time to shine. But I've seen such progress. Um I'm excited about this next hill week. I think that this is the government is ready to hear us. You know they're ready to make changes the conservative party especially is begging for time with us as you can imagine and I just can't say enough about the staff making those arrangements for us and making sure that we get in front of the right people to. Lobby make some changes make sure that we are consulted when the government is going to make changes and also I want to say I'm so excited about but the ad campaign we've been running an ad campaign now and spending more time in resources.

22:46.31
Veronica Love
On that ad campaign to make sure that the average canadian sees the value of a mortgage agent and it's working. We're carving out more and more market share in this industry and I just want to um, give kudos back to our national association for helping us do that lots of exciting stuff on the go more to come this year as well and as far as um. My role as vice chair I'm extremely proud and honored you know for women in 27 years is nothing to brag about. We have lots of work to do there but I'm going to make it my mission to bring out the most talented women in this industry and call you out to come forward and volunteer. Um, maybe run for a future election at both the local level and the national level whether it's with your you know provincial association or the national one. Npc you know I encourage you to get involved. We need to hear your voice as while diversity is. So very important in this industry because we want to make sure we reflect not just all the genders but also all the different backgrounds that make up Canada. So if you're feeling like you have something you can give and contribute. You know this is your call to you to get involved and you always have. My Dms or my phone and I would love to walk you through what that could look like and get more involved in your association I think it's so very important.

24:05.64
keymedia
And absolutely and let me ask you about something which I guess last year was quite a contentious or controversial debate that emerged but 1 that we had to have in the industry about bullying and harassment. Um, it's hard to believe that we're I guess almost a year on from that. Kind of emerging as a major topic in the industry. What are your thoughts on how things have progress since the Ann Veronica or what? what the kind of you know how things are going in the industry on that point at the moment.

24:40.58
Veronica Love
I have to pause on this one a little bit but I will say you know contentious I guess that word triggers me a little bit because it shouldn't be contentious what I was really proud of with the industry is that the conversation was finally being had. It's been always whispered at events. It's kind of something we've been all acknowledging for a while but maybe not speaking publicly about but the power of speaking publicly about the way we want to see events conducted the inclusivity um of all backgrounds and of all genders without fear. Not being included or not being included in the right way and not feeling safe is so very important because like I said with mpc and getting involved in the association. We need everyone to feel comfortable to come out and to connect and to share best practices and it really. Is sad when I mean you guys did a great session with Laura Martin and re and and they were still saying you know what was it the irish kiss like I drift into the event make the rounds and disappear right? I think that was how she framed it right? fergal? Um, and I think it's a real shame because what makes.

25:48.60
keymedia
That's right.

25:52.84
keymedia
That that's right.

25:58.90
Veronica Love
1 person not feel like they can stay until the end of the event and maximize on the relationship building and the networking where somebody else feels you know, confident to stay. So do we have work to do. We absolutely do do I feel optimistic I sure do this, you know the industry. Really jumped on board and kudos to you for hosting some incredible panels and and for continuing to keep the conversation alive. So thank you for asking this question because I think it's important that we continue to talk about this and continue to say we want safe events I'm really proud of the associations by the way. Um, shout out to Amber as well. But all the associations made some efforts around key messaging on what they think is right and statements sent to the industry at large about what they will tolerate not tolerate in some of their policies around future events. I know the board is talking and as we're ramping up to our October national conference. Yay future conferences in person again, we are putting some strategies around how to make sure people feel safe at the events and how to you know make reporting easy. So that people do actually feel like they can come forward and say this didn't feel right and I need help and I don't know I feel very optimistic about the future of events I think there's a 0 tolerance to poor conduct and poor behavior and I know in my past I haven't always stood up for others. Way I wish I did but you have my commitment that I will in the future and I think there's a lot of other brave people who are gonna in conversation say nope that joke wastappropriate or no, you need to remove your hand now and respect her space or his space. So I'm feeling very optimistic I think. You know again. Thank you to you to Cmp to others in the industry who are keeping the conversation alive so that we don't just sweep this under the rug and go back to normal practices because normal practices weren't working for so many people.

28:03.17
keymedia
And yeah I think you're I think you're spot on and you know the the alternative to having this to be is not having it which is you know, just going to keep this ya practices going on and On. So yes, it might be an uncomfortable one for some but you know it's better to get these things out and to to. Um, you know to speak about them. Frankly, um, just on the subject of diversity and inclusion. Um, is there anything that has kind of stood out at you on on anything that you would like to see done to make the industry a more diverse and a representative place.

28:38.10
Veronica Love
Absolutely again, that conversation came up quite a ah bit in the past year I am very encouraged about the progress we're seeing um I think more people are accountable to diversity than ever before they're thinking about it. They're auditing their own businesses and saying are we diverse enough. Have we. Isolated some people that could have really impacted our business in a different way. Um, you know again, kudos to Kara Schulman at npc. She's really spent time in gauging the board and volunteers and brokers to make sure that the panels are diverse and you can see that in the speaker lineup that has been present. In our industry especially during the symposiums you know back to gender. There's been more women speakers than I've ever seen before and that just never happened and sometimes it was you know I was a part of the process where I'd ask women to speak on Panels or to be keyno speakers and they wouldn't they shied away from it. They felt like they didn't have value to breaker. Bring or their voice didn't matter or what could they contribute I'm seeing a huge change in that I know my company specifically were very proud when I joined a number of years ago, you know across the website. It was very predominantly male. But behind the scenes there were so many incredible women making you know the brokerage successful. Well I'm proud to say that we are at 60% female staff now. So we're more dominant in female staff than we are male now we maybe have to swing the balance back. We're really concentrating on diversity as well making sure we're representative of different backgrounds so that we can support our agents who are of all different backgrounds across this nation and make sure that we're representative there. So I think that accountability has to happen across the board I think if you're. You know at a brokerage where you haven't taken the time to audit your business and make sure that you're diverse. You know this is the year to do that and and also you know back to the harassment and making safe places if you're a brokerage out there who didn't. Redo your policies and guidelines and make some firm statements about what kind of conduct um around diversity and inclusion and safety that matters to you I would encourage you to do that. Why haven't you done it by now go and do it now. Get it out to your agents. You might think it's just you know talk. But it means a lot to the people that work for you. It means that they will feel safer some of our lender partners went out of the gate right away called staff meetings with their bdms and said you know I just want to reiterate that this is a safe place to work that you can report.

31:23.39
Veronica Love
Anything that doesn't feel safe and you know what happened immediately Bdms came forward and said. Thank you and you know what there are situations that I don't feel safe in and they communicated that So This conversation has to Happen. We have to make sure we are diverse and representative of all. But I think without making the formal statements that you want to be more diverse. None of it will have happen so we have to be accountable for sure and encourage each other to stay true to that and move forward.

31:50.54
keymedia
This very well said indeed. Um Veronica that's actually all that we'll have time for today. Um I want to thank you again for coming on for what was a really enlightening discussion. We wish you all the best with with Tmg and npc this year and I'm sure that we'll be speaking very soon. So thanks. Thanks again.

32:07.78
Veronica Love
Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in person at all of the industry events coming up. It's going to be an exciting year for that. Thank you for your time today.

That just about does it for our latest edition of cmp talk stay tuned to canadian mortgage professional for more coverage of all what's happening in the mortgage industry and the market in the near future. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you soon.