Chris Shortt
Mortgage Broker
BRX Mortgage Inc.
BCFSA X301291
Licence MB612777
How I work
This is what actually happens between the first phone call and your keys, what I need from you at each stage, and what I do when something does not go to plan.
It often starts when not everything was collected up front.
The file goes to the lender looking complete. Then a week later the lender asks for one more document. Then another. Then a different version of one you already sent. Each request adds days, and every round of it makes you wonder whether this is going to come together at all.
Nothing has actually gone wrong. The information was always going to be needed. It just was not gathered at the start, so it arrives at you in pieces, at the worst possible time, while a closing date sits on the calendar.
That is the thing I have built my process to avoid. It is not clever. It is just done properly at the point where doing it properly is boring and nobody feels the benefit yet.
You tell me what you are trying to do. I ask enough to understand the situation, then tell you what looks realistic, what I still need to confirm, and what the next step is.
This is the step everything else depends on, so it gets more attention than it looks like it deserves. This step moves as fast as the documents come in. I send you a list built around your actual situation, not a generic checklist. If something on it does not apply to you, it is not on it.
Then I go through what comes back before it goes anywhere. If a pay stub is the wrong period, or a statement is missing a page, or the name on something does not match, I would rather find it now than have a lender find it in three weeks.
On the Island this is not a formality. An older house with poly-B or a buried oil tank, acreage on a well, a strata with an assessment coming: any of these changes which lenders will look at the file at all.
I check this before I place the file, not after. Finding out at the approval stage that your lender will not touch the property is the most avoidable delay in this business.
Your file goes where it actually fits, not where it is easiest to send. Different lenders read the same income and the same property very differently, and matching those is most of the value I add.
A lender usually responds within a few business days. Files that need an exception can take longer, and lenders often look at purchases with a financing deadline before refinances and switches.
If I think you are better off staying with your bank, I will tell you.
An approval usually arrives with conditions attached. These are normal, and most of them are satisfied by the documents already gathered in step two, which is the whole point of doing step two properly.
I aim to have every condition signed off at least 10 business days before your closing date. Files still open inside that window can draw extra document requests, and the lender may move the date.
This is where the details matter most and it is where you will hear from me most. If something needs sorting out, you will know the day I know, not the week before closing.
Instructions go to your lawyer or notary, who often need two to ten business days depending on the paperwork and everyone's schedules. I stay on the file until the money moves. You still call me, not a call centre.
I will be in touch before your renewal comes up in a few years, whether or not there is anything in it for me. If something changes in the meantime and you want to think out loud about it, that call is free and always will be.
From a signed approval to closing often takes about three to four weeks. Shorter closings are possible, but they can limit which lenders and lawyers can work to the date, so tell me your timeline early.
BRX Mortgage Inc. runs an underwriting coaching and compliance review on my files before submission. Somebody who has seen thousands of these looks at mine and tells me what is missing.
You get the benefit of that without paying for it. It is the reason a file of mine is less likely to come back with the drip of document requests I described above, not more.
I would rather tell you I need to go and check something than guess in front of you. Having people to check with is the point.
It will, on some files. An appraisal comes in low. A lender changes a policy mid-file. Someone's hours get cut in week three.
What I will not do is sit on it while I try to fix it quietly. You will get a call, an explanation in language you can actually use, and the options as I see them, including the ones that are bad for me.
Most of these are solvable. Almost none of them are solvable faster by keeping you in the dark, and the reason people end up hating this process is not that things went wrong. It is that nobody told them.
Nothing to fill in first, and no credit check to book. Bring whatever questions you have got.