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Syndicated mortgages may still be relatively unknown, but leading player Fortress Real Developments hosted an informational conference Wednesday, focused on filling in the gaps and the opportunities for brokers and investors.

“It’s a way of subsidizing income and it’s a great opportunity for clients if it’s right for them,” said broker Elisseos Iriotakis, co-chief executive officer of Safebridge Financial, one many industry professionals in attendance in Toronto. “If risk is calculated and it’s the right product at the right time.”

The Fortress event, held on the Exhibition grounds, showcased a number of the projects taken up by the lender/equity partner. More generally, syndicated mortgage providers offer investors secured investments that pay brokers a return based on referral.

And Fortress Real Developments, through FDS Broker Services, is increasingly garnering interest from mortgage brokers who are looking to add more revenue generators to their business models.

“We started our (broker) business channel on June 1 and we’re already starting to see huge interest,” said Glenn May-Anderson, president of FDS. “We’ve already signed a national deal with Centum.”

For now, the biggest challenge may be educating the broker public about what syndicated mortgage investment can offer clients. Wednesday’s conferences are a step toward overcoming that.

“Once people come to the event, they’re all over it,” May-Anderson said. “Our mission is education, education, education... the product is far safer than anything else out there; people just need to find out about it.”

For his part, Iriotakis is still doing his due diligence, but is impressed.

“We just signed up and we’re very happy with what we’ve seen,” he said. “It looks like they have corralled a great management team.”

As for how he thinks other brokers will take to syndicated mortgages, Iriotakis sees them becoming a common addition to the sales arsenal.

“Absolutely, it will pick up with brokers, (especially) brokers with access to financial planning,” he said. “They just need to be careful not to marry the mortgage brokerage business with the syndicate business.”