At Christmas, the world seems to decelerate just enough for us to notice what’s always been there: kindness, generosity, and warm, friendly cheer. For one day, the usual stresses—deadlines, worries, contentions—step aside, and we’re reminded that goodwill is not rare, just sometimes overlooked.

Christmas has a way of drawing the best out of people. So, from all of us at MLN, we hope this pause brings you a sense of joy and perspective, and that this warmheartedness carries forward long after the day itself has passed.

Merry Christmas and the very happiest of holidays,

Rob & the Team
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This is Part II of MLN's one-on-one conversation with HomeEquity Bank (HEB) SVP Rene Quercia.

In this final installment, Rene zeroes in on six subjects mortgage brokers should find helpful:

• A new reverse mortgage product in development
• HEB's policy on renewal pricing
• Whether HESAs are a competitive threat
• Channel pricing parity
• Reverse mortgage tax and portfolio preservation strategies
• His top 3 reverse mortgage growth strategies for brokers

Some of the strategies in this video are proven, practical, and repeatable business generators — please enjoy.

Tuesday was a tale of two GDPs as Canadian growth contracted sharply while U.S. growth blasted above estimates. That immediately raised the question: Will a rising American tide lift Canada's boat, once a North American trade pact is finalized?

If you bought a home with 5% down around Q4 2021 or Q1 2022, odds are your mortgage is still "high-ratio."

Depending on your rate, where you bought, and what you paid, by 2026, you may have amortized only 12-16% of your mortgage so far.

In fact, average Canadians who bought within a few months of the February 2022 peak might even be underwater (owe more than their property is worth). That's especially likely if it's a condo in the Greater Toronto or Greater Vancouver areas.

So, if you’re in that spot, maturity is looming, and the renewal offer on the table is uninspiring, what’s the best move?

And if you owe more than the place is worth, who exactly is lining up to lend you money?

In the absence of any data worth losing sleep over, Canadian bond yields drifted slightly lower on Monday. They decoupled from U.S. yields, which moved a few ticks higher.

Bond traders will start this morning staring at their screens, awaiting direction from Canadian and U.S. GDP.

The Bank of Japan boosted its benchmark interest rate on Friday to its highest level since 1995. While widely expected, the move nudged U.S. and Canadian yields higher. Closer to home, Canadian retail sales in October missed forecasts, but November data suggest consumers finally remembered where they put their wallets.

With AI search set to rapidly overtake traditional search, this could be the worst time in history for mortgage marketers to procrastinate.

AI search presents fleeting opportunities for mortgage companies to be found, for two reasons:

1. The AI companies competing against Google have a greater market share, which creates more places where brokers and lenders can be cited.
2. Fewer sites have been tuned to show up well in AI search, so the competition is thinner—for now.

For brokers and lenders hoping to strike "gold" in AI search (like ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity), the secret sauce is specificity.

That means writing with extreme clarity for tightly defined mortgage scenarios—the ones that are easier for small competitors to be cited for.

So, while big banks fight over "What is the best mortgage rate today?" small lenders and brokers can win by answering more specific, complex and personally relevant questions that real people ask their devices—e.g.,

“Renewal strategies for incorporated self-employed borrowers using dividend income”

instead of the tragically vague

“mortgage renewal advice.”

To make this crystal clear, we've generated examples of key phrases to target and to avoid. We utilized a new AI research tool from UberSuggest for this task (Otterly.AI or Profound are other good AI search tools if you're looking for ideas).

We then provide a list of 12 best practices that mortgage content marketers can start employing immediately.