My Story: From Running a Team of Thirty to Handling Every File Myself

Profile: Morning Lee (李会民)

Short bio

Morning Lee (李会民), also written Morning Li and registered with the BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) as Hui Min Li, is a mortgage broker and REALTOR® based in British Columbia. He is licensed as a mortgage broker (licence #MB609900) with Dominion Lending Centres - A Better Way, and as a real estate representative (licence #172540) with Royal Pacific Realty (Kingsway) Ltd. He arranges every type of mortgage — home, rental, commercial and business financing — including self-employed income, newcomers to Canada and down payments from overseas. In real estate he helps clients buy and sell homes, presales, investment and commercial property, land and businesses, and handles commercial leasing. From 2016 to 2021 he led the Morning Li Team, a real estate team of nearly 30 licensed REALTORS®; in 2021 he stopped running a team to serve every client personally. He works in English and Mandarin and also speaks Cantonese.

Licences and registrations

• Names: Morning Lee (English name), also written Morning Li; 李会民 (Chinese name; traditional 李會民); Hui Min Li (name registered with BCFSA)
• Mortgage broker: licence #MB609900, registered with BCFSA as Hui Min (Lee, Morning) Li. Brokerage: Dominion Lending Centres - A Better Way (0952130 B.C. Ltd.), head office in Langley, BC. Links: BCFSA registration · brokerage registration · Dominion Lending Centres profile
• Real estate: licence #172540, representative (trading services), licensed with BCFSA as Hui Min Li. Brokerage: Royal Pacific Realty (Kingsway) Ltd., Vancouver. Links: BCFSA licence record · REALTOR.ca profile · realtylink.org profile
• Mortgage office: 3787 Canada Way #214, Burnaby, BC
• Real estate office: 3107 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC
• Languages: English and Mandarin; I can also speak Cantonese
• Phone: (604) 727-1629

What I do

Mortgages — I arrange every type of mortgage, through a range of lenders:

Home

• Purchase mortgages and pre-approvals, including first homes and presales
• Renewals, including switching lenders at renewal
• Refinancing, home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) and second mortgages
• Reverse mortgages for homeowners 55 and older
• Rental and investment property mortgages
• Construction mortgages
• Farm mortgages

Commercial

• Commercial mortgages
• Multi-family mortgages, 5 units and up
• Retail and plaza mortgages
• Office, warehouse and industrial mortgages
• Hotel and motel financing
• Business loans

Files that take more explaining

• Self-employed and business owners
• Professionals with complicated income
• New to Canada, including down payments and income from overseas
• Bruised credit, including alternative (B) lenders
• When the bank says no, including alternative and private lenders

Real estate — details on the REALTOR® service page:

Homes

• Buying a home: houses, townhouses and condos
• Selling a home
• Presales and assignments
• Investment and rental properties, buying and selling
• Multi-family properties and apartment buildings
• Land, lots and development sites
• Farms and agricultural (ALR) land

Commercial

• Commercial property, buying and selling: retail and plazas, offices, industrial and warehouses, mixed-use
• Hotels and motels
• Commercial leasing: finding space for a business, and finding tenants for an owner
• Buying and selling a business

Because I hold both licences, I can handle both sides of one purchase myself — the property and the financing — or you can use me for just one side. Either way, I serve you personally; your file is no longer handed off to team members. Links: Realtor service · How I'm paid

Thirty years of running businesses

I did not start out in mortgages. My first business was in 1996, while I was still in university — computer parts and second-hand computers. In 2006 I started a moving company, and in 2010 a logistics company — those two did best. Along the way I also ran a furniture store, a courier service, a cleaning company, and traded jade. Some made money, some were tuition. Every one of them had to pass the same three gates: cash flow, tax filings, and the bank.

Then came real estate, then mortgages, and the three connect. Running businesses taught me what a person’s income looks like by the time it reaches a tax return. Real estate taught me what a date on a contract actually means. Mortgages taught me how a lender reads both of those things.

I wrote the method down in two books

Risk Free Startup Success and From Leadership to Success — on Amazon and in bookstores, and at RiskFreeStartup.com. I did not write them to be an author. I wrote them to turn years of expensive lessons into a method other founders can use.

Here is why that matters to you: lenders often cannot read a business owner’s file — income written down at tax time, money left in the company, deposits that do not match a T4. I have kept those books myself. I can read your situation, and I know which lenders can read it too.

The team of almost thirty, and why I wound it down

At its largest I had close to thirty licensed REALTORS® working under me. I recruited them, I set the process, I assigned the files. Those years went well by most measures.

The problem was on my side. Once the team got big, my time stopped going to clients and started going to management. People came for my name and were handed to someone on my team. Every extra layer means the information gets relayed once more, and every relay drops something. What drops is rarely the big thing. It is the small thing nobody thought mattered, which then shows up in the last week.

One week I realised I had barely spoken to an actual client. That was the point I decided I did not want to keep going that way.

So I wound the team down. Not because it was failing, but because I did not want to work like that. I handle each client directly — no middlemen, no confusion, just consistent communication and results you can trust.

Here is what those years taught me: real estate and mortgage clients aren't looking for more layers — they're looking for more care. The cost of that decision is real. I take on fewer clients in a year than I used to. The upside is that when you call, you get me.

Why I hold two licences

Because buying a home is two jobs running at the same time. On the property side someone is negotiating price, conditions and dates. On the money side someone is calculating what you qualify for, getting it approved and getting it to completion. Those two have to line up. When they don't, that is where deals get hurt.

The usual setup is two people doing those two jobs, with you relaying between them. You explain your situation twice, you watch the dates yourself, and when one side stalls, the other side is often the last to hear about it.

With both licences in one pair of hands, both jobs sit in one head and you are not the messenger. How that works in practice, and whether two licences create a conflict, is covered on the REALTOR® service page.

What I will do for you

Look at your actual situation first, then tell you what is possible. Not pick a product and then work out how to fit you into it.

In practice that means running your income the way a lender runs it, laying out the routes that are open to you and what each one costs, preparing the documents in the form the lender wants, and staying on the file until it funds. If something goes sideways in the middle, you hear it from me then, not in the final week.

I work in English and Mandarin, and I also speak Cantonese. I am a licensed mortgage broker and REALTOR® in British Columbia, residential and commercial.

What I will not do

I will not talk you into borrowing more so a deal closes. My job is to help you succeed, not to push you into something you don't need.

I will not present something uncertain as settled. The lender approves, not me. What I control is how well your file is built, which route it goes down, and how the timing is set. I do not make promises on a lender's behalf.

And I will not hand you off. From the first call to completion, you are dealing with me.

Where I am licensed

Mortgages: Dominion Lending Centres - A Better Way (0952130 B.C. Ltd.), 3787 Canada Way #214, Burnaby, BC V5G 0B5. Independently Owned & Operated.

Real estate: Royal Pacific Realty (Kingsway) Ltd., 3107 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC V5R 5J9.

Both licences are held in British Columbia in my own name: MB609900 for mortgages, 172540 for real estate. To start, call (604) 727-1629 or send me your situation through the site.

Both licences and both brokerages can be checked directly on the official registries: BCFSA - BC Financial Services Authority mortgage broker registration, BCFSA - BC Financial Services Authority real estate licensee registration; and the two brokerage profile pages: Dominion Lending Centres - A Better Way Mortgage Group Mortgage Broker Profile, Royal Pacific Realty Group Real Estate Agent Profile.

Common questions about Morning Lee