Member stories

Joy & Gino
Member since 2015, North Burnaby Branch

Gulf & Fraser made their dream of building a vacation home in the Cayman Islands a reality.

Gino Grandinetti and Joy Norgard have strong and lasting roots in The Heights neighbourhood of north Burnaby, BC. Both were born in The Heights; they grew up there, got married and then bought a home in the area. Being well acquainted with The Heights, Gino and Joy are passionate about supporting local businesses and organizations that care as much for their community as they do. It's this connection that led them to Gulf & Fraser in 2015.

"We really appreciate the way we're treated when we walk into the North Burnaby Branch of Gulf & Fraser. We're known there—the employees call us by our names. We've developed personal relationships and have real and meaningful conversations about our financial goals."

One of Gino and Joy's financial goals was to build their dream vacation home in the Cayman Islands. With the help of a line of credit from Gulf & Fraser, their dream became a reality in 2017.

"Joy really loves the sun," says Gino fondly about his wife." I wanted to find a way to give her an escape from the grey winter days we get here, so we started really talking seriously about building a place in the tropics."

Their journey began in 2008 when they bought raw land in the Cayman Islands. From there, they built a small home on the land and, finally in 2017, completed work on a bigger house that would serve as a stately vacation home for the family (and extended family!) and earn them extra income as a vacation rental property.

"Gulf & Fraser was very accommodating and worked with us every step of the way. They really partnered with us to make sure that we had the right financial product for us and the employees were almost as excited as we were when our home was finally built."