The Mortgage I Got Wrong Early On and What It Taught Me
Early in my career, I closed a mortgage I was proud of. It moved fast, the client was thrilled and I remember feeling like I'd done my job well.
It took a couple of years for me to understand that I'd done my client a disservice, not by making a mistake on the file, but by never asking the one question that would have changed which Kelowna mortgage solutionI recommended in the first place.
The Mortgage That Looked Like a Win
The client qualified easily, the rate was competitive and the approval came through quickly. On paper, everything about it looked right. I structured it the way I structured most files at that point in my career: find the right product for my client for their situation and get it approved efficiently, then move on to the next file.
What I didn't do was slow down and ask what the next few years looked like for that client. Were they planning to grow their family. Were they thinking about renovating. Was there any chance they'd need to access equity or move before the term was up. None of those questions came up, because at the time, I didn't think to ask them.
What I Didn't Ask
About two years in, their life changed in a completely normal way. Plans shifted and they needed some flexibility from their Kelowna mortgage that the product I'd put them in simply didn't have. Breaking the term meant a penalty that ate into the very savings the fast approval was supposed to protect. Nothing about the file was wrong. It just wasn't built for the life the client ended up living.
That's the part that stuck with me. A mortgage can be perfectly approved and still be the wrong fit, if the person structuring it never asked what the next five years were supposed to look like.
What It Cost and What It Taught Me
I still think about that file more than plenty of mortgages that went smoothly. It taught me that closing quickly and closing well are not always the same thing and that the questions I used to treat as small talk, what's changing in your life, what are you hoping for in a few years, are the ones that shape the entire recommendation.
It changed how I run every file since. Now the first conversation isn't about rate. It's about what someone's life looks like well past their closing date, because that's the only way to structure something that still fits once life happens the way it always does.
The Habit That Came From It
That's where the discipline I wrote about a few weeks back came from, the one habit that separates brokers who last from the ones who eventually burn out. (The Habit That Separates a Broker Who Lasts). It didn't start as a best practice I read somewhere. It started as damage control after getting this exact thing wrong.
Most of what I do differently today traces back to some version of that file. Not a dramatic failure, just a quiet gap between what looked like a good outcome and what served the person in front of me.
What I'd Tell a Newer Broker
Getting someone approved is the easy part of this job. Asking enough questions to know what they need, before recommending anything, is the part that takes longer to learn and matters more once the file closes.
If there's one thing I'd want a newer broker to hear, it's that the mortgage that looks the smoothest going through isn't always the one that serves your client best five years down the road. Slow down long enough to ask what their life might look like by then. That question has changed more of my recommendations than any rate sheet ever has.
