Focus on refinances and renewals, not the purchase market, urges broker
It’s also translated into more opportunities in parts of the province that historically had fewer options.
“There’s a lot more business in rural areas that we just never had,” Clarke said. “There’s a lot of options for refinancing, and I find a lot of people in these rural markets go right from the banks to the [other best-known lenders] and there’s a lot of stuff in between they don’t quite know about.”
Is the industry too hung up on purchases?
Clarke argued the broker channel as a whole remains overly weighted toward purchase business and realtor relationships, even as renewal and refinance activity has grown over the past year and a half. Much of that comes down to habit, he suggested, with marketing budgets and referral networks still built around realtor relationships and purchase transactions rather than the renewal side of the business.
That’s the wrong approach, he said – and one that’s not in tune with where the real opportunity currently lies. “I think that we as a broker channel want to focus on something,” he said. “There’s way more people with mortgages up for renewal that need to refinance than there are people buying homes in Nova Scotia.
“I think we’re very focused as an industry on purchases, talking to realtors and stuff, but there’s this whole other lane.”
