Executive on the latest from the MIC space
Fluctuating interest rates and economic uncertainty helped push many Canadian homebuyers off the sidelines in 2023 and early this year – but a steadier current outlook is seeing confidence slowly return to the market, according to a top lending executive.
Kyle Williams (pictured), director, mortgage sales at First Circle Financial, told Canadian Mortgage Professional that less turbulence on the interest rate front appeared to have helped restore a degree of optimism for buyers, with rates beginning to steady out after a bumpy ride in recent years.
“What we’re seeing on our side is that it’s definitely starting to pick up a little bit,” he said. “I think there was a lot of hesitation to really get involved in the market over the last year and a bit as interest rates were rapidly rising. People were more or less scared to enter the market. It’s almost like they wanted to see it just calm down.
“It doesn’t necessarily need to continue to go up or continue to go down. They just wanted to see some steadiness to say, ‘OK, this is what we know mortgage rates are going to be,’ and we’ve been at that now for a handful of months where there hasn’t been any movement.”
Williams said the mortgage investment corporation (MIC) is fielding an increasing number of calls at present from brokers who have spoken to realtors with potential offers and purchase agreements on the table – all while qualification with conventional lenders remains a significant hurdle for many would-be buyers.
“So that’s where companies like us stepped in,” he said. “We’re dealing with some borrowers that are still having a hard time being qualified. But the majority of our business still kind of acts with the market – so if the market is busy, we’re in turn going to be busy.”
The Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association – BC wrapped up its annual conference in Vancouver yesterday, with president Marci Deane (pictured) hailing this year’s event as the biggest it has ever hosted.https://t.co/tuRcQ0bIBY#mortgageindustry #mortgageevent #businessgrowth
— Canadian Mortgage Professional Magazine (@CMPmagazine) April 17, 2024
Significant expansion during 33 years in operation
First Circle has had an eventful journey since opening its doors in 1991, with founder and owner Alan Cross growing the company to a business with over $200 million in mortgages under administration over the decades.
Its initial focus was construction lending, primarily in Vancouver and the North Shore, but since then it’s expanded to residential first and second mortgages as well as some commercial and land programs and lines of credit.
The company’s geographic reach has also widened, expanding significantly across the province to Whistler, Squamish, Pemberton, the Island, Greater Victoria, Campbell River, Salt Spring Island, the Sunshine Coast, Kamloops, Kelowna, Salmon Arm, Cranbrook, Prince George and more.
“Going from just being a smaller mortgage investment corporation of a couple of million bucks only doing construction lending all the way up to being over $200 million and lending all kinds through the province has been quite a change,” Williams said. “And it’s been growing rapidly.”
Brokers remain a core focus for company
The company prides itself on the strength of its relationships with brokers, according to Williams – and maintaining close connections with key brokers or brokerage houses is the “name of the game” when it comes to bringing in deals and keeping things running as smoothly as possible.
“I have a solid 25 to 30 brokers that I like to think I’m their first phone call when things come around. And that seems to do us relatively well,” he said. “And then we also have the brokers that have been using us for a very long time, that were using First Circle before I was around. So they liked the way that we work, they like our products, they really enjoy working with our underwriting staff.
“The biggest thing that we hear from brokers in our line of work, being a MIC, is, ‘We want the path of least resistance.’ So they want to be able to pick up the phone and call me and know that I’m going to be available, or talk to the underwriter that they’ve worked with on their last two or three files.”
It’s no secret that the MIC space has seen significant growth in recent years, a trend that Williams said he also witnesses on a daily basis through new calls.
“The amount of brokers that I’ve been getting phone calls from over the last three or four years that I’ve never even met before is kind of crazy,” he said. “It’s definitely becoming more prominent in the industry that clients need solutions like a MIC.”
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