Australia’s largest independently-owned mortgage broker, Loan Market, is holding a workshop on how to start a career in the home financial services sector.

Loan Market head of new broker recruitment Chris Dobbie said the workshop at Chancellor on the Park in Brisbane on Saturday, March 20, would cover all aspects of a career in mortgage broking.

Mr Dobbie, a former national Mortgage Industry Association broker of the year, said mortgage broking appealed to people who preferred self-employment and the top performing brokers could earn in excess of $300,000 a year.

He said the half-day workshop was part of Loan Market’s rookie broker program and would cover a typical day in the life of a broker.
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The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has put a healthy housing market in jeopardy by lifting official rates, mortgage brokers say.

The RBA on Tuesday raised the cash interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 per cent.

Loan Market Group said the lift would hurt consumer and business confidence and possibly have an adverse effect on a national housing market, which has so far weathered the global economic downturn.

However, the mortgage broker said there would be no significant immediate financial effect on Australian households paying off an average home loan of $300,000.
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photo credit: alexanderdrachmannBy Jill Fraser for Lending Central

A broker who wishes to remain anonymous has expressed concerns to Lending Central about remarks made by the CBA’s Head of Third Party Banking, Kathy Cummings to finance and business commentator, Peter Switzer on Sky News recently.

Switzer asked Cummings to articulate her idea of a perfect broker and among a host of desired qualities Cummings stated that she would like brokers to have a “holistic approach” to their relationship with the CBA “so that they introduce the customer for life for their total banking needs not just the mortgage product”.

The broker, who doesn’t want to be identified because it could place their relationship with the CBA in jeopardy, read this comment by Cummings as a clear indication that the CBA is favouring brokers who are prepared to push CBA products that are unrelated to mortgage products.
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Some light at the end of the dark and gloomy mortgage tunnel is beginning to appear, with mortgage brokers beginning to support alternate lenders to the big four banks.

A surprise finding stemming from preliminary results of the CoreData Mortgage Broker Affection study reveals that brokers have not abandoned recommending non-bank lender products altogether.

RAMS, led by the iconic sheep Raymond, had 10 per cent of brokers ranking the non-bank lender in the top five of lenders they would recommend to their clients, with 3 per cent ranking it number one.
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By Jill Fraser for Lending Central

Melbourne-based broker Daniel Thorpe, Managing Director Thorpe Financial Services Pty Ltd says; “in the coming New World it will only require a minor shift in lenders’ policies to do away with aggregators”.

Thorpe contacted Lending Central and offered to put forward the broker’s perspective regarding the changing market.

He maintains that the broker perspective is constantly being trivialised as “whinging”. His argument is that the opposite is true - brokers are adapting to change but not so lenders and aggregators to anywhere near the same extent.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that aggregators - the middlemen - are the one part of the equation that could disappear,” he says.

“The banks have established individual criteria. Their rules vary but essentially they all state that unless brokers submit a specified number of loans a quarter they’ll lose their accreditation.
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A corrupt Canberra mortgage broker, who pleaded guilty to forging documents to secure home loans for his clients and commissions for himself, avoided a jail sentence yesterday.

The Canberra Times

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The global credit crunch and liquidity crisis has entrenched the dominance of Australia’s big four banks and left non-bank lenders and mortgage brokers battling just to stay afloat.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show mortgagors have flocked to the banks in the past year, with non-bank lenders’ share of the market falling to 11 per cent in 2008, from 19 per cent in 2007.

The majority of those switching over have gone to the big four banks - ANZ Banking Group Ltd, Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd, National Australia Bank Ltd and Westpac Banking Corporation.
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Moves by some banks to reduce commissions to mortgage brokers will not check the growth of the increasingly important service the industry is providing to mortgage-paying Australians, according to Loan Market and X Inc Finance, Australia’s fastest growing mortgage broking group.

Jennifer Nielsen, Loan Market and X Inc Chief Executive, said her group was discussing the issue of commissions with all lenders, reinforcing to them the value of forging long-term relationships with mutual customers or borrowers.

“Lenders need to look beyond merely the commissions that they pay mortgage brokers for service and focus on the true value that a mortgage broker provides,” she said. “Research has consistently demonstrated that the people who use mortgage brokers are typically time poor, higher-value customers who invest more over the medium to long term.

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