2. My Home Loan

The slowing market just allows the team at My Home Loan to spend more time on education and training. Everything at this brokerage is designed to improve the customer experience, from algorithms for finding the right broker fit, to simply spending time learning about policies.

Sales director Darren Liu entered the mortgage broking industry in 2012 and established My Home Loan in early 2014. Contrary to the name, the group diversified in 2015 to offer a number of commercial finance products.

While he says the brokerage has not been long in the market, the years it has been running it has learnt to adapt and grow with smooth processes which have led it straight into this year’s second place.

Early on in the business they realised customers felt uncomfortable with multiple brokers or assistants following up on their loan enquiry. They came up with a genius way to develop the best customer experience right from the start.

“When enquiries come into the system or into our office we don’t randomly give them to one broker to follow up - we have an algorithm to match the customer,” he explains. As Liu says, different customers want different experiences.

“We might not want the most experienced broker because they may go direct to the results, but the first home buyer wants to talk, and these brokers might only have five minutes to talk to them.

“So, if we match them to a more junior broker but with a more experienced back team, they can lead the customer step by step with more guidance and they will have a better experience.”

Once a home loan is settled, the brokerage goes the extra step by offering the borrower help with setting up their utilities. A small gesture, but one that provides that extra value.

My Home Loan grew significantly in its first year thanks to the property boom, but as expected has slowed down in the current climate. While things are slow, Liu says this is the time they are concentrating on their education.

The team holds Mortgage Broker Academy sessions each week to talk about changing credit policies and make sure everyone is on the front foot.

As with other brokerages, My Home Loan has found recruitment a challenge as people started to question the industry. To combat this, the group has been inviting external brokers to join the broker academy sessions and forging connections that way.

“The education and workshops are exactly what we use internally, but we want to get that one man band who’s done it before but they’re struggling and they don’t want to leave the industry. We want to give them more training,” Liu says.

Total loan book: $869,000,000
Total settlements 1 March 2018 – 28 February 2019: $206,587,060
Number of loan writers: 5
Avg. annual volume per broker: $41,317,412
Conversion rate: 96%