6 Reasons to Follow Your Mortgage Broker on Social Media

Social media marketing has been the hot spot for many businesses and professionals who use it as an effective way to connect with their customer base. While it can sometimes be beneficial to follow a more traditional business in the hopes of finding out about offers, deals, and hours, you may not see following your Mortgage Professional in the same light.

Here are six reasons to follow your mortgage professional on social media, which can be just as beneficial for you as it is for them.

 Get Your Questions Answered. Lots of people turn to the Internet and social media to crowd source answers, such as “what are the current interest rates” or “how much house can I qualify for”.  While you can certainly get a lot of responses from your friends and contacts, having a Mortgage Professional in your feed can get you some very specific and goal-oriented answers.

You’ll Get More Details. You will get independent mortgage advice from a mortgage industry expert about purchasing, refinancing or renewing.   You will get:

•  Personalized service
•  Independent, unbiased advice about what's in your best interest.
•  A great rate that comes with terms and conditions that match your long-term needs.
•  Ongoing advice, when you need it

You’ll Do Less Searching. The mortgage process can be complex and daunting.  Why navigate through the often murky waters of bank terms, hoops and red tape when you can have a mortgage professional work not only with you, but for you?

Whether it’s your first home, a refinance to consolidate debt, an investment property, a mortgage renewal or a second mortgage, a mortgage professional can help you find the best financing solution for your needs. A mortgage professional will research and filter through dozens of loans and products and then review the best options with you. A mortgage professional will help you make key decisions and then support you through the application and closing process.

You’ll Learn Things. You can learn something.  By following a mortgage professional , you’ll be getting all kinds of information about the market, interest rates, new mortgage products, etc. that you might not have learned otherwise. This can help you accomplish your goals faster and with better results.

They’ll Come to You. While email lists aren’t necessarily part of social media, chances are that if you follow your Mortgage Professional  on any type of site, they’re going to ask you to sign up for their email list. If you do so, you’ll now be getting information delivered right to your inbox. So all you have to do is sit back and read, rather than spending your time searching for the same thing.

Start Following. If you’re worried that your Mortgage Professional will use social media as a big push to get you to use their services, you shouldn’t be. Most of them are using social media as a way to get word and information out and to connect with their existing client base as well as potential new clients by getting their name out in front of as many people as possible. So you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by clicking “like”, “follow”, or “sign up”.

Start following your  Mortgage Professional  on social media today and find out just how much you stand to gain.
 

NDP in Alberta?? Say, what now?

By Gord Appel, Vice-President TMG Alberta Region

Wow, this time last year someone might have thought to have you locked up if you said there would be a NDP majority in Alberta.  Yet, here we are mid-May, after the May 5th election dust has settled, and we find ourselves welcoming in new Premier, Rachel Notley, of you guessed it - the NDP.

While the election results may have been shocking enough to gain attention on a national and even international scale; a closer look at the political landscape in Alberta would show another story.  Rumblings that the 44-year privilege, the PCs believed would stay forever was about to crumble, were being echoed throughout the province.

After six years of governing a financially booming province, the then current PC government not only handed down an un-balanced budget but also gave Albertans a budget that proposed legislation with significant increases to Mortgage/Land Title fees, further cuts to essential services and front-line staff in both the medical and education sectors.  We were told to brace for tough austerity.

We then witnessed (now former) PC interim leader Jim Prentice call a premature election to secure his leadership spot - this election was to cost the Alberta taxpayers an estimated  $30 Million Dollars.  Uhm, what?  We Albertans took to the polls and with an unprecedented move removed the longest (provincial/federal) run in government in Canadian history.

The election results said that while change is frightening we were no longer willing to go with the "devil we knew".  We took the NDP from a mere four  seats in the legislature to a majority government with a resounding 53 seats.  While some are pleased, some dejected, and perhaps more still indifferent, we are all going to have to live with the outcome.  This "new" cabinet and lack of experience has many Albertans fearful.  While the cabinet is a group of "newbies", Rachel Notley herself is not.  She brings a strong sense of leadership and her team brings with them a message of hope, renewal and positive change.

Our political landscape may be changing, but what makes us uniquely Albertan has not.  Our "Alberta Advantage" is not borne from the luck of geography alone, our greatest resource has and always will be the great people of this province.  Yes, we are blessed to have one of the richest oil patches in our backyard and lucky for us that doesn't change either.  Oil is going to continue to be an important resource for the foreseeable future -- we have lots of it – and the infrastructure and foresight to get at it and distribute it.  We are an entrepreneurial-spirited bunch. We work hard work and we play hard and that is not going to change either; regardless of the flag colour the governing party flies.

And while we may be nervous of what a change in government may bring, we are willing to take the chance on some fresh faces, new ideas and the inspiration it can bring.

Notley's first act was to extend an olive branch to the energy sector.  She promises to work closely with energy-industry leaders to re-write Alberta's system of royalties and environmental rules over the next four years.  She has promised to cancel Prentice's increases to Mortgages and Land Titles (certainly good for all us in the Mortgage Industry).  She has promised significant investments in health care and education.  She pledges to freeze post-secondary tuition fees, expand public home care and include school lunch programs for kids in low-income households.

 Now it's just a question of how she's going to pull it all off?