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Pat Sawler
902-465-5533
HALIFAX OFFICE:
1959 Upper Water Street
Suite 1301
Halifax, NS B3J 3N2
SURREY OFFICE:
7404 King George Blvd
Suite 200
Surrey, British Columbia, V3W 1N6
Nova Scotia Brokerage 2021-3000179
Broker 2021-3000180
Be Caring
In a very competitive fields like mortgage brokering, car sales, financial planning or real estate sales, where most of the established agents have a similar level of knowledge. Clients are attracted and retained not by how much you know as the playing field is pretty level after you have been doing it for a while […]
All said and done
When all is said and done then you can put your guard down and celebrate. However beware of premature elation. You financing is not complete when the vendor accepts your offer. It’s not complete when your mortgage request has been approved. It’s not complete when all financing conditions have been approved. It is only complete […]
Mortgage Math Revised
A few years ago I wrote a post about how you can calculate out your own debt service and figure out on your own how much house you can afford. A lot has changed since I published that in 2015, so today I wanted to update a few key components to that prior post. Insurer’s […]
Get it in writing
Important events in your life should always be received in writing. A handshake is good for a greeting not for a formal agreement. I had a prospective client call me yesterday and tell me that the previous broker they worked with got them pre approved but that they had never received it in writing. Job […]
Sales process
One of my colleagues recently told me an interesting stat. He said that 74% of people find their realtor because they called them back after they made several calls to agents to enquire about their services. I find that surprising for a service that is 100% commission. I know we are in a very busy […]
It’s not over till
It’s not over till the fat lady sings, or in the case of your mortgage till your lawyer receives the funds. So just because you have received a file complete on the purchase of your new home, it does not mean that it is time to go on a shopping spree and go wild. The […]
Rate change
Last night I received notification from several of my lenders that they were reducing their 5 year fixed rate. Depending on the lender reductions were anywhere from 10 to 40 basis points. Remember one hundred basis points = 1%. However you know what did not change? The variable rates did not change. This is because […]
Trusted Advisor
To me it hasn’t seemed that long ago when if you had car trouble someone always had a guy who could fix it at his place. It didn’t matter if it was as simple as brakes or a complicated as major motor work, it was all possible in someone’s back yard. Now vehicles are so […]
Request Declined
Sometimes it happens that your mortgage request has been declined. More often than not this is an opportunity to restructure the request and start again. See if any debts can be repaid, have you included all the assets and properly explained the sources of income and all your debts? Can you increase you down payment […]
The best time
The best time to buy a house according to the old adage is always now. In this hot real estate market and thanks to rock bottom interest rates, you will be paying down principal much faster than you are paying in interest. For example if you bought a house for 550K with 30K down on […]
Appraisals
Usually when you pay for something you own it. The exception to this rule is for real estate appraisals. When and if they are required, they requested and owned by the lender. On the odd chance that we your broker have a copy, just remember that we can not release it to you. Appraisal are […]
New Clients
The best kind of new clients to get come from referrals. This could be from past clients or referral partners like realtors or financial planners. This is because they come pre screened from a trusted source so they are people who really know what they want and have already been told who you are and […]
Extra Payments
If you are one of the lucky few who’s mortgage is coming up for renewal in the next few months, this post is for you. Let’s say for example that you will have a mortgage balance of 300K at renewal and that you have been at 2.79% for the past 5 years on a 25 […]
Future Homeowner
Any goal worth achieving will take some planning to make happen. Take our hot real estate market for example. If you plan on buying a home in the not too distant future then you need to start to work on a few things to make that happen. We are going to look at the two […]
Exceptions
Rules in life and in mortgages are made to be broken, on an exception basis. Lenders look at your mortgage application and judge it based on the 5C’s of credit ( Character, Capacity, Credit, Collateral and Capital). Having a strong strength in 4 out of the 5 would be grounds to request an exception. Note […]