Unlocking Mortgage Mastery with Amy Wilson: Real Life Mortgage Solutions

In this episode, Len Lane, founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc., sits down with Amy Wilson, a founding team member of the organization, to delve into her journey into the world of mortgage brokerage. From her background in finance to the pivotal decision to transition into mortgage brokering, Amy shares her insights, experiences, and the transformative moments that shaped her career path.

Discover the importance of work-life balance, the evolution of the mortgage industry, and the keys to surviving and thriving amidst constant change. Whether you’re considering a career in mortgage brokerage or seeking valuable advice on navigating the industry, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.

About Amy Wilson

Amy Wilson brings over 14 years of expertise in mortgage brokerage, fueled by her passion for finance and dedication to client satisfaction. As a founding team member of Brokers for Life Inc., Amy has played a pivotal role in shaping the organization’s success, embodying professionalism, integrity, and a commitment to excellence. With a background in finance and a relentless pursuit of knowledge, Amy continues to elevate the standards of mortgage brokerage, empowering clients to achieve their homeownership dreams.

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Contact Len Lane | Brokers for Life:

Contact Amy Wilson:

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Transcript:

Len 00:02
Welcome. My name is Len Lane, and I am the founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc. And we are Dominion Lending Centres in Western Canada. The topic of our podcast will be about what we consider to be Real Life Mortgage Solutions.

Len 00:20
Welcome to our podcast today, it’s more than appropriate that you are our first live guest on this podcast as it is called Real Life Market Solutions. So, it’s a slogan that you came up with 14 years ago, and it has definitely stuck. It is plastered on everything everywhere. So, and now it’s the name of this podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, Amy Wilson, founding team member of Brokers for Life Inc.

Amy 00:46
Hello, everyone.

Len 0:48
How are you this morning? You’re out in your spring part of the country they’re in right now. Is it? Is it spring out there?

Amy 00:55
Yeah, we definitely have Spring, East of Sherwood Park, there’s still snow because it’s an acreage living scenario. And we’re completely blanketed, still, we’re in a protected area. But I’m hoping over the next couple of days, we get the melt, and I really get to enjoy spring.

Len 01:11
Well, today, we wanted to talk with you about several things, of course, I’m going to start that conversation is, why you became a mortgage broker, you can talk about how I saved you from going to the bank as well if you’d like.

Amy 01:26
I was working in the finance industry for years and I loved dealing with basically everything that finance had to do. I was constantly learning, it was changing, there was always new things that came my way. But I had decided to start a family and after I had kids, I needed to figure out a way to give me work and life balance, and yet still stay within the finance industry, which was always my passion. So, how do you make it so you can still work the hours and still balance and juggle, not only kids, dogs, but everything else, right? And I started looking into the mortgage industry. And I got a couple of different people who had said, this is where you should go or this is what you should do. And I ended up sitting down with someone from RBC with Royal Bank and they had offered me a position. And then in came someone else who said you should speak to Len Lane, he’s a broker. And you should listen to what he has to say because it’s different than working for the bank. And after I sat down with Len, I decided definitely that was the way to go. And he had presented me with an offer and I scooped that up and I’ve been with him ever since.

Len 02:39
And 14 years later, you remember who that person was–

Amy 02:44
–from Royal Bank.

Len 02:47
No, that told you to come talk to me.

Amy 02:48
That was, actually, it was my husband, along with Ernie Capella, who at the time was a sales manager at Daytona Holmes.

Len 02:57
Yes. And as some of you know, listening to some of my other podcasts. My background was in homebuilding before mortgages, it was kind of that next step for me as well to get into that. So, you’re actually in the box, right? At a finance, at a car dealership?

Amy 03:13
I was, Yeah, so I started out working with Ford credit. I was an auditor that worked on the road, and I would go and audit the financial statements of all the dealerships, and determine, you know, if their floor plan, so the amount of vehicles they had, etc, was correct on their lot and that the books were balanced and in place. And then from there, I started being an underwriter with Ford credit. And what an underwriter does is they look at everybody’s credit and they determine ways of affordability so that they can own a car. Naturally progressed over to a car dealership, team Ford at the time, and they asked me to be their finance manager. So, I was in the car industry as a finance manager for years. And then I went on maternity leave and I wanted to go back to finance but I worked basically I worked seven days a week from sunup till sundown and that wasn’t something that was going to be feasible. So, I then decided to take my schooling from Nate, from business and apply it to something new and that was where I met Len and went from there.

Len 04:27
Excellent. Yeah, it’s definitely work-life balance still gets a little out of line I guess sometimes. We have busy seasons and slow times, so you got to take advantage of those when they actually show up, I guess right? Somebody asked me a while ago what, how we did that how Margie and I did that because we work together of course. Right? And we just basically the idea around our houses that weekend is the state of mind is not necessarily a couple of days on the calendar for you know there’s a slow spot coming up where rollin extend long weekends and things like that too so to try and balance out all the other hectic things that go on. There’s been ups and downs in our industry, you and I have been through a lot of them together, it’s maybe talked about how you’ve managed to survive that I guess or to work through those periods. I know, you’ve kind of rebuilt your business a couple of times now, as have I. Just kind of, maybe give some idea of what the industry is like when that happened.

Amy 05:30
For me, when I first started, I was very young, very excited to try something new, I had gone and talked to a number of different contacts that I had. And I was I felt that I was ready to start my business with supportive brokers for life. And when I first got into the industry, t…