Real estate crm comparison for Mortgage

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hey guys welcome back to another edition of the Saskatchewan real estate podcast this week we sit down with Ryan mahlberg he is a realtor and mortgage broker in Saskatoon and what I wanted to do with this episode was really explore the differences between both of these professions and kind of focus in on the pros and cons of each and you know I'm specifically designed designing this episode for someone who might be thinking of becoming either a realtor or a mortgage broker but this is also going to be a fantastic fantastic episode for anyone who's wondering about these specific jobs and exactly how they work hope you enjoy this is the Saskatchewan real estate podcast the show that highlights Saskatchewan real estate looking to buy your first house your next investment property subscribe to never miss an episode here's your host Ron caroni [Music] hello and welcome back to the Saskatchewan real estate podcast I'm your host Ron caroni here on the podcast we love to touch on all things real estate and all things Saskatchewan if this is the type of content that you're looking for we air weekly episodes every single Monday don't forget to hit the like And subscribe button to never miss any of those episodes this has been a podcast that has been a long time in the coming we've been chatting about this for I think about a year and finally we have Ryan mulberg on the podcast and today Ryan's really going to help us explain the difference between Realtors and mortgage brokers because Ryan himself is both of those entities so without further Ado Ryan thank you so much for joining us today well thank you for having me it's uh like you said it's been a long time coming it feels like so it's good to be here Ryan and I work in the same office as mortgage brokers but you do have the advantage of me of also being a realtor and this is what we're really looking for our perspective of Both Worlds and really I'm kind of looking at this episode to be one if someone is thinking about becoming a realtor or a mortgage broker you'd really be able to help make that decision or if anyone's curious what kind of Our Lives look like uh you'll kind of give us the the dirty details so let's just get into your background Brian first of all and how you kind of got into both Industries and just a little bit about yourself to start it off yeah great for sure um so our guest background I uh we got a Commerce degree uh in finance so kind of my I started off in the um entering into University going I don't want to do anything with numbers and then all of a sudden here I am I'm I deal with numbers on a regular basis I've got a major in finance and um uh from there I started off with CIBC actually at a university I spent seven years with CIBC and did um I was I guess involved in many different positions I started off as a teller and um and then from there I went and became uh part of the wealth management team and with the financial advisors and then from there I became a small business advisor and that's kind of when the mortgage brokering started for me because I actually for the the owner of isas mortgage brokers uh Scott Trombly he actually came into my office and was opening up a bank account for his Mortgage business and so I was inquiring like what's this all about and it was right at a time when I was looking for a change he's like well why don't you come over and work with us and so six months later that's when I became a mortgage broker and so that was back in 2000 January 2006 is when I became a mortgage broker and um uh so left CIBC behind and never looked back and it was the the best career decision I made uh for sure so um so that's kind of a bit of the the background from the mortgage side of it and uh and then I got into real estate here about uh six years ago seven years ago we've had our own real estate company back in nip one since 1946. um so my great grandpa started it uh my Grandpa took over then my dad took over and then dad mentioned he was looking at selling the business and I'm like well hey um I wouldn't uh mind becoming a realtor as well so Dad said yeah for sure so he was my mentor for two years before he officially retired and walked away from the business and [Music] um after that was done then I started up my own company M Realty here uh within the last uh I guess it's been almost four years now so that's awesome so you definitely have more of a a work background in mortgage brokering but you have such a family history of being in real estate and and being Realtors so you're the perfect person to kind of go through this topic with us and basically what I'd like to do Ryan is I'll present a different aspect of the business and then I'd love to get your take on both of those so let's start it off with time if you're becoming a mortgage broker or a realtor what are the time demands of each and and what do kind of they look like whether we're talking freedom of Time how much it takes to to work on a deal and just kind of take us through the pros and cons of each it's a really good question it's one that I've addressed over the years um with uh individuals that are looking to get me into the industry and when I started off as a mortgage broker of course I you know I had a fairly good idea what Realtors did you know and I was familiar with the documents and and stuff like that but you really don't know everything until you actually get into it and start working within that the industry and um the nice thing about mortgage brokering is is that it's essentially you know let's call it a Monday to Friday job even though it's not we're still working you know some evening some weekends stuff like that we can at least say to our clients look at you know yeah the banks are closed and they are our lenders are going home uh after Friday you know they're they're gone for the weekend so we you know we kind of have a bit of a break in our business that way um however the the real estate side of thing is is is essentially every day all day all times of the day um and that can be a bit of a a challenge at times but keep in mind that you know yes you're in charge of your own schedule however you still have to work within the your buyers and sellers requests as well so yeah it ends up by being a lot more you know evenings weekends just odd hours um but it's something that you just get used to especially being in the mortgage business uh you know being self-employed you're you're already kind of used to that's that that schedule if you will so um but I do find that the real estate is a little bit more challenging to manage your time the mortgage stuff is it's a little bit easier that way how about on a deal standpoint Ryan hey I know that every deal is going to be a little bit different and some files can be really quick and others can be long and drawn out but if we were to just take like an average of your business that would come as a real estate agent versus as a mortgage broker what takes more time when you're dealing with a client as a real estate agent or a mortgage broker yeah I like that question because it's uh um it's when I when I got into becoming a realtor and I remember the very first deal I did and I called Dad who was my mentor at the time and I'm like okay I got this uh this buyer they want to buy this house what do I need to do for documents he's like well just fill out this one offered purchase form like that's it one just just one form that's all I'm dealing with right now and he's like yep and I'm like oh my goodness it's like so much less work uh paper-wise uh than becoming or as a mortgage broker and especially coming from the the banking world and the compliance and the due diligence and stuff like that they just drilled that into my head so that's all I've been used to and and um so the the mortgage stuff for sure is a lot more cumbersome you get way more paperwork you have to process and yes we get used to it um but it was something that uh again going into the real estate world like wow this is a far less uh paperwork involved now now not to say that from a time commitment though overall if you're looking at a start to finish um on a file whether you're acting as a buying agent or a listing agent or if you're handling someone's mortgage file you know there's there's actually more involved with uh the real estate stock especially starts showing houses well geez you might have to show someone 20 houses well there's to almost 20 hours of of your time to working with that and then once you get an accepted offer in place now there's all the other conditions you've got to follow up and all the paperwork you got to do so I still feel like the mortgage stuff is a little bit more cumbersome and a lot more involved um but yeah from a Time command the real estate stuff can certainly be a lot more of a time commitment right and I'd imagine during that kind of crunch time when you're trying to get your condition satisfied both the real estate agent and a mortgage broker are going to be working very hard for a one or two week period so would you say that that would kind of level it out when you're in kind of those moments of getting an offer across would there be some equilibrium there yeah I suppose I I think if you kind of like to your point if if we're just looking at once we get an accepted offer in place I would feel that the um their real estate is a lot less time involved than than as a mortgage broker so the mortgage broker for that two-week period if you will like you just indicated is a lot more involved from a time commitment than it is with the real estate file awesome yeah really great answers there Ryan and I think that kind of helps illustrate that there's not one size that fits all but in general here are the situations that you're going to kind of run into with this all right moving on to the next one technical skills needed to be able to complete the both jobs so on this one I'm kind of thinking what type of people skills technical technical knowledge and negotiation skills do you need so first uh let's just go through uh technical knowledge so to become a mortgage broker versus becoming a realtor take us through how those two differ from each other So when you say technical are you talking about just like the stuff that's involved with the the process yes so like if we were to take a a deal from from nut to bold it which one is more technical would it be a realtor or a mortgage broker I would say mortgage broker um again a lot more you know when I got into this business I I got to or doing both the the real estate and the mortgage brokering um I could see more mortgage brokers becoming Realtors but I wouldn't see see more Realtors also becoming a mortgage broker because I feel the mortgage brokering side of things is a lot harder if I could say it that way a lot more technical um it's just a lot more to learn and understand um and it's just a lot more involved and so many different scenarios that come into play uh with a with a mortgage file than it is with a real estate file and don't get me wrong the real estate stuff can be a little bit more complicated at times too but but for the most part I find more than most of them are pretty standard if you will um you know the negotiating side of things of course is more you know more the real estate side of things a lot more you know back and forth with certain things that arise during the homeless inspection or just the negotiating of the offer the price and conditions and stuff like that certainly you've got to have a strong skill set and the ability to to work with um you know another realtor as well so that was something that took me a little bit of getting used to um and but overall though I still feel like that from technical side of things the mortgage side is more difficult right when you're talking about negotiating and I'll kind of speak to this one or my interpretation of it as a mortgage broker we're not doing as much negotiating as we are trying to find the right bank for that client and so we're taking a situation and we're putting up it up against all these different lenders and we're saying you know where's the best products where's the best rate what term works for these clients what situation do we have to navigate and so there's not as much going to the bank and saying you know bring this right down or I'm taking this somewhere else typically we're looking for other things on that side where from the real the from the real filter standpoint you really are negotiating with that you know Sellers realtor and the seller wants as much money as they can get for the property and you're trying to get the best price for your clients and vice versa in those situations yeah no well said you're exactly right the the negotiating side's not as much on the uh of the mortgage stuff for sure but the mortgage stuff has an interesting side to it as well when you're trying to put together these complex deals and and we all know in this world that you know we don't see many easy deals uh you know or we could call them slam dunk deals uh they're not as common as we would like them to be for sure so there's always these complexities that come to the table with a mortgage file and um so that's that's one of the biggest challenges I feel like within our mortgage world and you know figuring out which lender would be comfortable with this particular set of variables or parameters on a particular so um yeah I think that's uh that's a big difference there between the real estate and the uh uh and the mortgage side last note on this one let's just touch on people skills and I know this one can be very broad because you could be a broker with no people skills but still be an excellent broker and probably the same could be said for a realtor but if we were looking at it in a generalized basis um can you touch on the different people skills that you need for both jobs and which one you would might say you need a bit more people skills to succeed in I would say the real estate side you'd need more people skills um that would be something that I've noticed that it's uh it's a really interesting transaction when you start to walk through homes with buyers and and and and the dialogue that you're having with every one of them or going through every house require you you're talking about a whole bunch of different things you know all of a sudden the location of that particular property maybe backs on to an open field or one that maybe backs on to a multi-unit complex and what are the what are the challenges with each one of these properties that you know and looking down the road which ones are more marketable and and you're constantly picking apart these properties as you go through them and you're trying to genuinely at least I do try to assist this buyer and in the sense of you know making sure they're getting into the right house and one that is going to be marketable down the road because likely they're going to be selling this house at some point in their lives and so why will that house sell quicker than another particular home so there's a lot of dialogue and conversations that go on with a real estate transaction then compared to a more mortgage one in mortgage one is like you're just talking to the clients like hey I need these documents here's what we're up to um send me the stuff and I'll get back to you and then all of a sudden things go quiet for a couple days so and not to say that we don't interact with our clients laws we still do yes and you still gotta update them and and still converse with them but it's it's way more involved than the real estate side and especially when you get into the negotiating with the other Realtors and communicating with lawyers on a regular basis and dealing with home inspectors and dealing with the city of Saskatoon for example there's just a lot of parties involved that you're constantly having to talk to so the people skills for sure are more prevalent in the real estate that's great okay next one and I I think I know the answer to this but I'll ask it for you anyway which one is harder to get certified in so to become a broker uh to the best of my knowledge it's uh basically if you were to sit down and write it it's a two-week course there's an exam to follow the the entry level fee I think so a thousand dollars or so what are we looking at from the Reit from a realtor standpoint Ryan yeah the real estate side of it is um a bit more involved currently they're trying to uh I could be wrong on this because it's been a number of years since I've written the exam but what happens is is that they when we first got into the business we had to write uh four exams and we have to do residential commercial and Agricultural and another one main kind of comprehensive exam and it costs you know from start to finish from the time you do your it took me about almost uh a year and now granted I was at a young family and uh you know with the four kids and that we're occupying a lot of my time plus running my mortgage business so I kind of stretched it out a little bit longer than I probably needed to um but overall though the um uh start the fish with the real estate siding and all the fees for the courses and Licensing fees is probably going to run you almost ten thousand dollars wow to to get and get involved to become a realtor so barriers to entry 100 more the real estate size a lot harder to get into than the mortgage side you know and with both it's very interesting because I think you make a good point that it took you a long time you're a mortgage broker had a young family but that's going to be a very similar situation to a lot of people who enter into either one of these fields typically you do not want to quit your job before you're licensed in fact I would recommend people always get the licensing done and then you know you can look at your your personal situation as to whether you want to keep working at your existing job or not but I would recommend you do not need to quit your job to partake in these classes or to start this training is that something that you would agree with Ryan or do you have a note on that yeah no I I think you you you said it perfectly because that's how I I get calls uh often throughout the year from the mortgage side or the real estate side people looking at entering the business and and that's exactly what I tell them I'm like do not quit what you're doing right now let's get you started get you enrolled in these courses and um and then once we're done then we can get you moved over and um so there's some uh mortgage brokers out there that continue to work that job after they become a mortgage broker or continue to be you know work that job becoming or still be staying as a realtor as well so um and I guess if you can find a brokerage that is willing to take you on with with that particular uh structure then great um I know personally that you know with the the team that we've created and that we would prefer to have people that are more full-time um and committing just to this particular industry um but certainly something that um each person has their own set of wow you know challenges I guess you can say and whether it's Financial or timing whatever it might be so all right so kind of leading on from that Ryan if we're talking you're you're certified and you're ready to be your your first day is a mortgage associate or a real estate agent which one would you find is the harder industry to to break into or to get your start now both can be really tough but do you have a thought on which one would be there might be a little bit more of a mountain to climb there cheese that's a good question I I would almost want to say that they're both very equal are they they're both such a similar industry you know um they I don't see one being a little bit easier to get into if you will because you're saying essentially what you're doing is you're you're you're building a business that's it whether you're a mortgage broker or realtor you got to get out there and pound the pavement and and and find clients and it you know the business model is very similar so um I I don't you know sure if there's you know is there more realtors in the city than there are mortgage brokers perhaps um so does that make it harder maybe a little bit but regardless again we're in this business as such that people are coming to to me because it's me it's not because I've got a certain brand above my head they're coming to me because they want to deal with Ryan Mulberry so um how did I find that business and and how to you know so to me that's the the biggest challenge I can train anybody to become a mortgage broker or become a realtor that's easy I can't train you to go get the business and that's that's the number one challenge sure I can give you some pointers and and you know steer you in the right direction but I'm not gonna sit there and wake you up in the morning and drive you around to you know meetings and stuff like that's that's all up to you so both businesses are very very similar in that regards so probably a common theme for that is you must be a self-starter in order to survive on the solo model like maybe you can join a team and you can be a part of a cog of a business within a brokerage or or something of that nature but if you're starting on your own as a real estate agent or a mortgage broker you need to be able to have a fire in your belly when you wake up in the morning and and start work unquestionably I but I kind of want to just take your point a little bit further if I could as uh when you when when individuals are looking at getting into the business and they're interviewing brokerages whether it's the mortgage brokerages and or real estate brokerages and maybe interviewing a certain team uh whether it's a mortgage team or or a real estate team um I would caution and just say you know be careful because a lot of these teams and brokerages will say oh we've got all this extra business coming in and we have no idea who to give it to and you know what we can pretty much guarantee you 10 leads a week kind of thing yeah be careful with that um you know that might be a way for them to get you into their brokerage and then all of a sudden you soon see that okay those leads aren't very good leads uh and they're keeping all the better ones for themselves uh you know sure with time maybe that changes a bit but to you with you being a rookie to the team yeah you're not going to get the best stuff and and you may not get as many leads as you actually think you will so yeah it's you got to get out there have the fire in your belly and give her you know that's that's my biggest thing one thing that people watching this are probably most curious about and I'll ask you to touch on it if we're comparing mortgage brokering to real estate agents which one in your opinion has the the potential for more income and I'll put a slight variation on this and which one provides more steady income okay so the steady income I would say mortgage brokering especially after you've been in it for a while and you've established a group of clients or or your your um yeah your book of business essentially because what happens is there's that person may not ever sell that house but you can always do their mortgage every three year five years or whatever it might be so their mortgages come up for Renewal or they want to do a renovation I need some cash further to do that well now you're doing a refinance app maybe you can transfer it to a new lender maybe they do end up by buying a house for their kid or their parents or whatever and they do need another more so you've got way more avenues for Revenue with the mortgage business so for me that would be a lot more steady of a business um than the real estate would be awesome and from a a value or like a top limit if you were the best real estate agent in Saskatoon versus the best mortgage broker just in your opinion which one is making more money real estate agent okay so the commission structure of a real estate agent you have the potential for more income yes awesome very much so yeah the the the the revenue per deal would be higher so and and I have it written down here and I think it kind of ties in to the first question I asked you but is that offset by other factors of the job so you might have the potential for more income of being a realtor but there I would say just from my personal perspective there's more flexibility as a mortgage broker and that I can go on vacation I can be in Mexico and I can still be communicating with my clients I can still submit to lenders where it's really hard for me to be in Mexico and still show clients houses oh yeah yeah you said it perfectly I think that's the the biggest thing is um you've got the flexibility of the mortgage World provides you with that ability to work from the cabin and work from wherever you want um in the world for that matter and um but yeah the real estate stuff is is challenging and it's something that I've even experienced from a realtor uh being a realtor as well is that when I go up to the cabin if all of a sudden I get a phone call they'll say hey Ryan I want to go look at a house it's like now I'm either driving back into the city or I'm having to try to find someone else to maybe do the showing for me and um so this is one of the things that I've been trying to work on for my real estate business this year is to find a realtor to join my team so um that's a little bit of a plug for anybody out there interested in getting into the business um so that would be you know take a lot of stress off my shoulders knowing that okay once I head out of town that if something does come up it's like I can just call my other agent and say hey can you go show some houses or help this person out with this and uh but yeah you're right because otherwise you have to physically drive back to the city and and help them with it so yeah certainly the mortgage brokering world does provide that more more flexibility and now with like star link and stuff like that you can much pretty much be on an island and you know wherever and and still have access to the world so that's right access to Internet and you can really be anywhere and and do what a mortgage broker does that's right yeah awesome we're about to to wrap it up here Ryan do you have any last thoughts on mortgage brokering and being a realtor and anything that you'd like to just quickly add on this subject well I think the biggest thing for me was is that I I love the flexibility of it it you know I've got four four kids and um my youngest was uh six months old uh or my pregnant oldest or my firstborn was six months old when I got into this this world or into this Mortgage business world and um the flexibility is given me with my my family and having a young family uh has been just I don't know how I would have done it otherwise so you know we often talk about it here in the office about you know how lucky we are to have um you know you know a lifestyle like this where we have that flexibility don't get me wrong sure there's still a lot of more stress involved and people actually think what we do and um but yeah the biggest thing for me is just having that work life balance has been been huge for me there was one question one more question that I really wanted to ask you because I think I get it probably the most it's why don't you also become a real estate agent or if you're a realtor why don't you become a mortgage broker so I know a lot of Realtors I know a lot of mortgage brokers you are one of the only ones that does both just please elaborate on why we don't see more crossover between the two it's one I guess that question myself um I was the only one in Saskatchewan for the longest time uh doing this and I've had people reach out to me across the country um so I've done some other interviews over the years about this and um they're still very very few uh people doing this dual um business and uh I don't know I I don't know what the reason is I it's it's you know a lot of people think it's a conflict of interest and they think well how can you help you know hold both licenses but you know of course before I got into this and spent the ten thousand dollars becoming realt I want to make darn sure that yes this was allowed and yeah neither neither um um I guess the regulatory bodies right thank you regulatory bodies uh had any issues with this whatsoever and nor should they there there's no there is no conflict of interest here you know so um but I I maybe that's part of it maybe people think that you just can't um now granted some people just one don't want to run two businesses either and um you know it's it again getting back to my point earlier about um it's a lot easier becoming a realtor if you're a mortgage broker but not as easy becoming a mortgage broker if you're a realtor uh it's just a much learning curve is a much steeper on the mortgage side of it right the skill sets involved with both a take a lot of time to develop and some of this stuff is day to day and the more thing the one thing that you're doing the most you're gonna develop that muscle and because mortgage brokering and being a realtor they are separate jobs but they are both involved you do who have to stay kind of on top of that so I think it does take someone like you who had this huge background of banking beforehand and also a big family connection there so you kind of understood the the real estate side as well so you know uniquely positioned to to be able to do that um yeah yeah we'll set ahead yeah thank you so yeah I have a lot of experience with the real estate stuff you know with uh you know rental properties and building houses and stuff like that so it gave me a little bit more Comfort level getting into the real estate world too but uh um but yeah it's not for everybody so second last question before we get to your contact information Ryan if you could go back to a younger version of yourself so this could be Ryan right before you became a realtor Ryan before you got into the mortgage space what advice would you give to yourself oh gosh wish I would have known this question in advance I could have come up with something a little bit more insightful perhaps um it's one of those things that uh I often wondered why um my dad never got me or pressured me or not pressure but um introduced me more to becoming what it was like to become a realtor because I feel like now without him in it I wish it would have started it sooner um you know but it's one of those things you kind of just gotta let yourself go through the motions of life experience and work experience and figure out what you actually want to do um but you know the biggest thing is is that it's uh it's a constant grind and just to know that going into it and um for me it was it was like I said right towards the beginning of this interview is that uh it was still the best decision I've made for my career to date so I wouldn't necessarily change much but just more I wouldn't obviously going to these Ventures with uh these business ventures with uh fairly naive probably and that's probably a good thing but it is a lot of work and it is a constant grind and it's all you're always working you're always on and those are things that I didn't know and you don't know until you get into it and so I would just tell myself just to kind of you know stick to it keep going awesome and lastly uh if someone is looking to buy or sell a house if they're looking for a mortgage broker if they're a real estate agent who's maybe looking to to join your team what's the best way for them to get in contact with you Ryan I'm a big phone chatter so I would love to hear from you over the phone give me a call anytime uh 306-261-0033 and uh happy to answer any questions that you have about either one of these businesses awesome thanks so much Ryan for coming on and exploring this I was really excited for the conversation and it lived up to my own hype so thank you so much for for sharing your your wisdom and your experience on both of these and I would highly recommend that if there is anyone out there who is considering either careers Ryan was one of the first person that I sat down with uh before I got into the business and it was a really good Frank conversation about what this job would be so really appreciate that and thanks for your time Ryan yeah it was very good it was a great time thanks Ron thanks again for checking out this episode of the Saskatchewan real estate podcast if you found some value here do us a favor and hit the like button and subscribe to never miss our weekly episodes that come out every single Monday if you're in the market for a purchase renewal or refinance in Saskatchewan I am licensed to do mortgages in Saskatchewan and I'd be happy to help you out with that next transaction simply just send me a message using the code in the show notes or link of this video on YouTube until next week I'm Ron caroni your Saskatchewan mortgage professional bye for now