At age 44, Ken Lankin took a golden handshake from Beneficial Finance after 25 years of service and moved to Florida to retire. That didn’t last long.
At age 44, Ken Lankin took a golden handshake from Beneficial Finance after 25 years of service and moved to Florida to retire. That didn’t last long.
“I left Toronto and tried doing the golf thing,” says Lankin, a mortgage agent with Mortgage Intelligence in the Niagara region. “And I said, ‘Nope. I’m bored’ and drove back home.”
It was on the trip back that he stopped in Niagara, and decided to put down roots and become a broker.
“I’ve called this home for 16 years now,” says Lankin, who has also been with MI for as many years, and who made CMP’s Top 75 broker list last year coming in at number 68 with $27,480,000 in funded volume on 170 funded deals. “It has been a pretty steady year; in fact, I think I did about $3 million more in business.”
CMP magazine is now calling for broker submissions for its ranking of Top 75 Brokers by funded volume for 2012. To be eligible, all the figures must be supplied by you, the broker/agent, via electronic survey – and that all deals must have been personally sourced and originated by you.
Click here to learn more.
Sales figures must be broken down by the relevant lender, and should include a contact name and telephone number for each representative of those institutions. CMP reserves the right to contact them and the broker network to confirm figures.
The deadline for submissions closes on June 21.
Lankin knows the properties in his area don’t carry the same high price tag as those in the Toronto area, but he also appreciates the steadiness of the market.
“We’re very steady here. We don’t see the fluctuations like the market in Toronto or Vancouver,” he says. “Whenever I see the latest stats from CMHC, I always have a chuckle – because only the new houses are being shown, and usually those represent the large subdivisions of a single builder. Here, of the subdivisions of new homes in the market, you will have a bunch of individual builders.”
Like the Top 75, the Small Market Top 20 gives a tip of the hat to the accomplishments of mortgage professionals in markets with a 2012 average home price of $290,000 or less.
As the gap between home values in Canada’s smaller centres and those in Toronto and other major cities continues to grow, the Small Market Top 20 is the best way to acknowledge the funded-volume success of those brokers.
The criteria to qualify for the Top 20 includes being in a market that is a CREA-identified region, municipality or centre, and to brokers who did a minimum 80 per cent of their deals in such a market where the average home price is at or under $290,000.
Small brokers will be automatically considered for the Top 75 list – and their volumes must be personally sourced and originated.
Being a Top 75 broker may not mean much to the ordinary Joe on the street, but it means a lot to those in the industry, says Lankin.
“It does generate a lot of inquiries from other brokers,” he says. “I answer a lot of questions from MI guys around the country. As my broker/owner says when we are at conferences or meetings, ‘If you want to know about the small market, ask Ken.’”
