Fraud committee a template for working together

You need four people to make a deal work – but getting them to work together is the challenge, says one association leader.

“It takes a Realtor, an appraiser, a mortgage broker and a lender – probably a lawyer – to make any real estate deal work,” says Steven Coull, the CEO of the Canadian National Association of Real Estate Appraisers (CNAREA). “To me, it is like the wagon wheel: we’re all a spoke in the wheel, but if you remove one spoke, it doesn’t work properly. We should all be working together to ensure the deal is made.”

That analogy will be a part of a speech that Coull will be delivering next month at a conference in Toronto – but it is also part of a solution as to how the mortgage industry could work better together.

And the template for that has already been created, Coull tells MBN.

“The fraud committee at CAAMP has done a lot of work bringing the factions together – without that being the intention, as originally it was to look at fraud and to determine how to avoid it,” says Coull. “They brought a lot of the components and the people together. They’ve done really good work so far, and they continue to do good work.”

It is coming together to address an unpleasant issue that could be duplicated on how to troubleshoot problems in the industry – avoiding those situations that can be divisive to the industry.

“Everybody tries to make a deal work,” he says, “but when a deal goes sour, then everybody starts picking at everybody. The idea that the factions shouldn’t be working together is ridiculous. We must work together – because if we don’t, this whole industry will come to a halt.”

MBN