Millions of homeowners and new purchasers are seeking the best rate mortgages each year and more and more are finding the new trend of using Mortgage Brokers to be a very effective solution rather than using the traditional lenders such as the Chartered Banks or Credit Unions.

This reversal in trend has become the norm in the United States with more than 85 percent of all residential and commercial mortgages being booked and processed through a Mortgage Broker.

Securing the best rate has been the primary focus of most people looking for mortgages but several other factors are making the choice to use a Mortgage Broker simple.

Most Mortgage Brokers send millions of dollars of mortgage business each year to their preferred lenders, as opposed to the average homeowners that seek or renew their mortgage on average of once every five years. The Chartered Banks give tremendous discounts to these Brokers due to the volume of business these Mortgage Brokers bring to them.

The two largest misconceptions that the Canadian public has are that “it costs you more money to use a Mortgage Broker” or “they are only for people with poor credit”. The Canadian Mortgage Industry is following their U.S. counterpart and launching a vigorous campaign aimed at educating the public to the key advantages of using a Mortgage Broker, and the tremendous savings that typically result.

Most new Mortgages booked through a Mortgage Broker are absolutely free and have no hidden costs when purchasing a new home. The convenience of dealing with a Mortgage Broker is equally as important as the rate, and in fact may be directly responsible for securing a better rate.

When the average consumer seeks a Mortgage they may visit or call multiple lenders in an effort to secure the best rate. Each time one of these lenders pulls a credit bureau on the borrower in an effort to qualify them, the borrowers Beacon score drops. The Beacon score is a system used by the Chartered Banks and Credit Unions to score the credit worthiness of potential borrowers. In some cases, multiple inquiries may actually drop a qualified applicant below the required scoring threshold to qualify for the exact Mortgage that the borrower is simply pursuing the best rate for.

A Mortgage Broker only performs one inquiry on your credit bureau and sends that bureau to as many as ninety lenders when searching for the best rate. Another convenient benefit is that a Mortgage Broker can meet you on your schedule at a place of convenience, or in many cases can perform almost the complete transaction over the phone or via email. Most consumers dread the visit to their local bank and find banker hours and voicemail too limiting and restricting for today’s busy household schedules.

The best rate, improved credit, convenience of meeting on your schedule, and having multiple banks compete for your business is a refreshing change when seeking a new mortgage or renewing your existing one. It will only be a matter of time before the Canadian public wakes up and realizes the huge advantage Mortgage Brokers offer, like our U.S. counterparts have known for several years.