A career in banking set the director of The Brokerage up for a life of broking, but Wardley says he has had to increasingly deal with alternative lenders in the search for finance
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A career in banking at two of the big four banks steered director of The Brokerage, Ben Wardley, towards commercial broking back in 2005. Dealing mostly with commercial real estate, it was his relationships with property developers and investors at those bank roles that encouraged construction to become his main focus.
The Brokerage mainly services the east coast, with Wardley himself based out of Sydney and another office located in Brisbane. Even if the finance is not construction specifically, it will be related; whether it’s help in purchasing the site or releasing equity from other assets. The company even has big investor clients as well, such as shopping centres.
His experience at the banks helped Wardley understand exactly what brokers needed to present when applying for a loan and he says he’d have struggled without that knowledge.
Despite his understanding, Wardley has not been immune to the struggles of the past 12 months. He says it feels like a “long marathon” to get deals approved and settled with the increasing scrutiny. In fact, he has had to pick his battles and change the types of transactions they complete.
“We have done a lot of apartments and high-density unit blocks and it’s been quite obvious for the last few years that banks are turning off the taps for that,” he explains. “We have done a lot more in the commercial construction space and a lot more shopping centres and warehouses.”
Wardley has turned more and more to non-bank and private lenders as a result of the tightening credit, which he says is a good thing because their processes are faster and they have flatter approval structures.
“That’s been a focus for the last 12 months for us to make sure we’re getting out there and looking under the rocks and making sure we’re aware of who’s doing the funding in this space,” he says. As part of this, Wardley is having to make sure his clients are kept up to date with market conditions and educated over the fact they may need to pay higher fees with alternative lenders.
Looking ahead, Wardley wants to continue the push towards commercial transactions and help clients buy sites as they wait for conditions to improve. To assist with that, the team set up a residential mortgage business to take on the residential deals.
More widely in terms of the lending market, Wardley believes it will be “more of the same”, but he does think the use of non-banks will overtake the banks. “We always hear of new lenders entering that space,” he adds. “We will welcome those new lenders because it makes our job a bit easier; there’s plenty of competition in that space.”
Total value of commercial loan settlements: $197,341,482
Number of commercial loans settled: 24
Average commercial loan size: $8,222,561
Years as a commercial broker: 4
Aggregator: FAST
