Exclusive Interview
Roy Cocciollo
Principal Broker at Yourmortgageyourway.ca MBE: Please tell us a bit about your background in this business, how you got into residential mortgage brokerage and consulting and your early beginnings? Roy: I started in the banking sector in 1998. I started as a CIBC mobile rep. I was there for about a year and then I got hired by Canada Trust. They had a hiring freeze so I left CIBC and I had deals coming in so I went to a friend of mine who was a mortgage broker who introduced me to a broker of record and then I became an actual mortgage broker in 1999. I worked with them for a few years and then started my own little shop: Color Short Mortgages in 2001. Then I was a managing partner at Monster Mortgages for 9 years. Now I am broker & owner of a small, niche mortgage brokerage downtown called Yourmortgageyourway.ca. We have been a company now for about 6 years, we have around 21 agents, we specialize mostly in residential mortgages, we also do some small commercial, some construction loans, some private lenders as well for those that don’t fit the box. MBE: What are the key things you did that kept you in the business for so long? Roy: I think there are a couple of things. It can be a very lucrative business. Most people who come into it, see dollar signs and they do things the wrong way early on. I think something that is rampant now in the business is mortgage fraud, costing a lot of people a huge amount of money. I think last year it was around $500M dollars discovered in mortgage fraud. People think it doesn’t hurt anybody but it hurts everybody. It makes regulations tougher. Everyone talks about why mortgage rules are so tough and this is one of the reasons. Home ownership in Canada is a privilege, it’s not a right. I would love to see everybody own a home but you have to make sure you take the right steps in order to get it. Longevity in this business means doing what’s right for the client. MBE: Home ownership is a very challenging thing to accomplish for first time home buyers. So what is your advice for such people who are in the market for their first home purchase? Roy: The problem you run into, with the guidelines that OSFI puts in place will be the B-20 rules. And you look at, you’d have to have a 25 year amortization, qualify at the mortgage qualifying rate. I’ll give you a great example. I have a client who is a teacher and makes $80,000 a year, she’s got 10% down, and she qualifies only for a $400,000 purchase. Not that she can’t afford more, but with the regulations make it very difficult for her to purchase something at $400,000. I mean what is she going to buy with $400,000? A studio apartment, maybe? So what ends up happening is, you’ve got all these people who can afford to buy, but don’t qualify for them to purchase something that is actually reasonable. I think that if you are a first time homebuyer, try to get the biggest down payment you can, try to have at least 20% whether you get a gift from your parents or maybe have a cosigner so you can actually buy something that is reasonable. I have found that first time homebuyers, you need to do your homework way in advance, you need to find out if you qualify today even if you are looking at a purchase 2 or 3 years down the road, so that at least you know what you need to do to get there. MBE: Can you describe the stress test in layman terms for our readers? I think a lot of people talk about it but most don’t understand it.
14
MBE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FEBRUARY / MARCH 2020
W W W. M B E F O RYOU. C O M
