FEATURES
CMA FINALISTS 2015 TRACY VALKO DOMINION LENDING CENTRES FOREST CITY FUNDING Tracy Valko values the customer experience. For her, it’s not simply about finding her clients a mortgage, but about being a part of the financial planning process. As a member of the finance and banking business for more than 15 years, Valko has been a leading expert in mortgage brokering in the Kitchener/Waterloo area for the past eight years. She has been recognized by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation as a leading mortgage expert in her market, as well as by three leading lending institutions that have awarded her with ‘status levels.’ She also consistently places in the Top 40 on Dominion Lending Centre’s National Top Performers report. “I pride myself on each of my clients not just being a client, but [that I am] part of their journey in life,” Valko says. “From first-time homebuyers to those upgrading their home for the expansion of their family – it doesn’t matter. I want to be there for them.”
NEEL SURENDRAN CENTUM CONCEPTS
JAMES LOEWEN LOEWEN GROUP MORTGAGES
Neel Surendran’s path to the mortgage industry was anything but normal. Most start out in the financial industry in some form, but the Sri Lankan-born broker went from working at an engineering company that constructed rubber and tea factories in his native country to owning his own mortgage brokerage, which he started in 2012. By maintaining 25% of his business from referrals, Surendran collected more than $35 million in deals, mostly by networking with realtors and other industry professionals. Among his goals are to add a second mortgage service and commercial mortgage platform to grow his business.
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After starting his career with RBC at Hamilton’s Centre Mall in 2005, Loewen learned the industry and built a business plan that would lead to him start his own brokerage in 2009. “It was a great training ground – attaining approvals with the credit challenges we faced with many of our clients, and to attain the sales volume targets given the relatively low mortgage amounts meant you had to fight for clients and their respective approvals from your own credit department.” His hard work has paid off over the last few years; the Burlington-based mortgage broker saw a strong 2014, writing $59,624,121 worth of deals. Approximately 67% of this success was derived from existing clients, refinances and new purchases.
TERESA DIFRANCO MORTGAGE ARCHITECTS After starting her career nine years ago, DiFranco has spent the majority of her time building relationships and acquiring referral contacts, which has helped to solidify her brokerage among the elite. “I focused my efforts on educating real estate agents at weekly, monthly and annual meetings. My focus was and continues to be providing agents with the knowledge they can transfer to homebuyers, and the tools to help facilitate the real estate transaction,” DiFranco says. “This created a unique customer experience between the client and the real estate agent. My first deal was realized after six months of servicing real estate agents in this office.” In 2014, DiFranco personally wrote 75 deals that equated to $24 million and was able to distribute another $20 million worth of deals to other associates. Both her individual volumes and those distributed to the team helped propel DiFranco & Associates to achieve a 63% year-over-year growth last year. Repeat business represents about 55% to 60% of the team’s portfolio. DiFranco is hoping to build on that success this year. “My emphasis with the team is we build on quality, not quantity. I’m not looking to expand the team, but rather have the team focus on high-quality client relationships and referral sources,” she says. “In order to further expand my career and breadth and scope of knowledge, I would like to progress toward influencing the direction of the industry – being able to get involved in overseeing bodies and industry standards such as CAAMP or IMBA.”
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