For the country’s largest mortgage teams, switching brokerages takes a lot of effort but can occasionally yield new opportunities.
As part of a periodic series, CMT features short profiles on $100 million+ broker groups that have recently made a move.
This week’s featured teams are Vertuity Mortgage and Butler Mortgage Inc.
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Vertuity Mortgage
Team Name: Vertuity Mortgage
New Brokerage Firm: Mortgage Centre
Website: www.vertuity.ca
Headquarters: Winnipeg, MB
Lead Planner: Brent Parnell and Todd Lovallo
Years in Industry: 10+
Licensed Agents on Staff: 4
Team Volume (Trailing 12 mo): $100 Million
Prior Brokerage: A midsize national brokerage firm
Top 3 Stated Reasons For The Change:
1. Recruiting: With MCC we are set up to recruit top producing brokers in our region
2. Management: MCC has strong leadership and head office support
3. Proprietary products: Access to CIBC products and branch relationships
Top drivers of business: We are primarily referral-based with the majority of business coming from financial planners, realtors and our existing mortgage clients.
Business Model in a Nutshell: We take care of our business partners/clients and put their needs ahead of our personal aspirations. By doing that we have built strong relationships that allow our team to remain small and business to flourish.
“Secrets” of Success: No secrets, just hard work. Combine a good work ethic with industry knowledge and a proper business plan and you are on your way to success.
Butler Mortgage Inc.
Team Name: Butler Mortgage Inc. (formerly The Dave Butler Mortgage Team)
New Brokerage Firm: Verico
Website: www.butlermortgages.com (Under construction)
Headquarters: Mississauga, ON
Lead Planner: Dave Butler
Years in Industry: 8 years
Licensed Agents on Staff: 10 (4 Full-time, 6 part-time)
Team Volume (Trailing 12 mo): $135 Million
Prior Brokerage Firm Name:National Superbroker
Top 3 Reasons For The Change:
1. Opportunity: Verico provides us with the opportunity to grow a company as opposed to growing a team within a brokerage.
2. Branding: Quite frankly Verico gives us the best opportunity to build and promote our company brand.
3. Future growth: I felt like the move to Verico was the next logical step for our company. It’s a better platform for us to achieve our next wave of growth.
Top drivers of business: Realtor referrals and existing client referrals.
Business Model in a Nutshell: Well, in a nutshell it’s centralized underwriting, trust in our system and never being outworked or outsmarted.
“Secrets” of Success: From a sales standpoint, I believe it’s important to focus on a market niche. Most niche brokers/agents I know have been very successful even in relative ‘down times’ in our industry. From a company standpoint, it’s extremely important that you never stop trying to be better. It’s easy to get complacent when you start to really taste success. I’ve seen a lot of brokers and teams fly up the ranks and then disappear the next year. So, continually setting and resetting goals, evaluating and re-evaluating where your company is at and where it needs to be is paramount.
Steve Huebl, CMT
