Prior to officially launching Dominion Lending Centres on January 27th, 2006, Gary Mauris and Chris Kayat, the founders, flew under the radar for more than a year while they researched all the active mortgage brokerage models in Canada, the US and Australia.
They discovered a gap in the Canadian marketplace for a national mortgage brokerage brand that reached out to consumers as competition for the banks. No other brokerage was advertising on a national level, and no one was using an advertising fund to help bring them to a national level of awareness. As well, the trailer fee model was not being embraced to enable brokers to have a residual stream of income that would help sustain them upon retirement.
Once others in the industry heard about Dominion Lending Centres and two guys running the company who had never been in the business before, they said the model would never work. How could you get a bunch of brokers to pay into a national advertising fund when they only cared about themselves on a local level? Oh, these guys will just start up this company so they can try to make big bucks in a sale, the competition said. They’ll hire anyone with a heartbeat, others said…
And through it all, DLC’s Head Office team heard every possible excuse the competition could make as to why we simply wouldn’t succeed. Still, we knew the model would work – all the while, Gary and Chris said Dominion Lending Centres would not settle for anything less than becoming the number one mortgage brokerage in the country!
And, guess what – we have not only managed to succeed but, in 2009, Dominion Lending Centres Mortgage Professionals funded more mortgage volume than any other brokerage in Canada!
It’s thanks to the top-notch mortgage professionals who have believed in DLC and what the company stands for as well as a head office team second-to-none that supported Gary and Chris’ vision and sealed the deal for DLC’s success!
But the hard work is not over! We must always continue evolving and improving to ensure we remain on top – and offer the very best value proposition to our mortgage professionals, consumers and lenders!
In celebration of our fourth birthday today, let’s look at some of the accomplishments Dominion Lending Centres has achieved within its first four years:
– In 2009, took a leadership position in Canada based on submissions as per Filogix
– Experienced 47 consecutive months of growth
– Grew from 0 to $8 billion in funded volume in 4 years
– Expanded from 0 to 1,600+ agents in 4 years
– Ranked 23rd on the PROFIT HOT 50 list of emerging growth companies – which appeared in the October 2009 issue of Profit Magazine – with 485% revenue growth over a 24-month period (2006-2008)
– Grew to include 135 franchises across Canada with more than 225 street front locations
-Our National Advertising Campaign (1st such ad fund created within the Industry, where the agents pay into it monthly like RE/MAX) aired 7,300 commercials in 2009 and made 170 million viewer impressions – including commercials on the finales for American Idol and Survivor with 11 million viewers watching
– DLC and our agents have been awarded Best National Newcomer Firm (DLC), Best Branding (DLC), AMP of the Year, Best Newcomer Broker, and one of our agents, was awarded Canada’s Top 50 Broker for 2008 (released in 2009 by CMP)
– Most successful white label branded mortgage line offering the best upfront and residual income in the industry
– DLC is number one in origination volume at several national Canadian lenders
Thank you for your continued support and devotion to DLC and this fabulous industry. Here’s to many more successful years together!