Melanie Smith makes successful transition from mobile broker to store owner
Starting your own Aussie Home Loans franchise brokerage from scratch is a mammoth task but it’s a challenge that Melanie Smith has tackled with energy and enthusiasm and she’s now reaping the benefits of all her hard work.
Smith has been in the mortgage broking industry for 14 years with Aussie Home Loans, but after working as a senior mobile broker she became an Aussie franchisee in October 2023, opening her Aussie Windsor store in the northern suburbs of Brisbane in December.
The all-female Aussie Windsor team includes Smith (pictured above second from left), broker Stef Thomas (pictured above right), broker assistant and credit officer Lisa Richardson (pictured above left), and broker assistant Amelia Andronis (pictured above, second from right).
Smith said the Aussie store is located in new territory.
“I didn’t buy an existing store or territory, I had to build this [business] from the ground up, which has been [a] very steep learning curve for me,” Smith said.
“I’ve been a broker for a long time so the challenge of finding a site, fitting it out – that was all very new and challenging but I needed a new spark.”
Smith said it was good to take a new challenge and push herself. As an Aussie mobile she had achieved diamond status but becoming a franchisee was about taking it to the next level.
“I was a big fish in a little pond and now it’s like I’m starting again as the little fish in the big pond, but I’m growing again.”
Aussie Windsor is located in the Homezone shopping centre in Newmarket Road, covering the surrounding suburbs of Herston, Alderley, Grange, and Newmarket.
Smith said the business was growing and it had the backing of the fully supported Aussie model. This means the franchise has the help of the Associates team, which makes the first contact with customers and books them in for appointments.
“I also brought across a reasonable size book so we are able to leverage off that too.”
Extra support is also available through the offshore processing team, allowing the in-store team to not only write and structure loans but develop business by reaching out and networking within the community.
Attracting customers in the community
Smith said it was important to promote the brokerage locally and so the team recently got involved in the WindsorFest community festival, running a competition and handing out piggy banks and AFL footballs.
A passionate AFL supporter, Smith also plays and coaches Aussie rules and her business sponsors the Everton Park Wolves junior AFL club.
There’s also a hospital near the Aussie Windsor store, and the team had run coffee activations, sparking conversations with nurses who were keen to buy property.
Customer base
Smith said a number of her customers had been with her for a long time and were in a similar age bracket.
“They’re upgraders that have older kids, they’ve had their first and second homes and are now moving into their ‘forever’ home or they’re using their equity to start investing and build wealth.”
Conversely, new to industry broker Stef Thomas is a young mum, who is attracting a lot of first-time buyer clients.
Smith said this meant Aussie Windsor had a really good spread of clients.
Most were residential home loan customers but Smith said now that she had her own store she was putting more time and energy into drumming up business clients too, offering asset and equipment finance. Aussie Windsor also does SMSF lending.
“We just settled one recently – a business owner who wanted to buy a bigger property, that involved a trust and was quite complex,” Smith said.
“A lot of my customers are property developers so we have the facility to assist them with those bigger projects.”
Smith said customer leads were not just confined to the store’s territory – being part of the national Aussie database meant they could get leads from all over Australia.
“The property market in Perth is very strong so we’ve got lots of people interested in buying in Perth and we’re more than happy to help them do that.”
Repricing and refinancing
If customers wanted to get a better deal on their current home loan during anniversary calls, Smith said the team always tried to reprice with the current lender first to get the best deal possible.
Once that occurred they would ask the customer if they were happy with their current lender or if there was something else they needed. “We don’t want to actively churn but we want to ensure the customer’s cared for.”
Smith said she was not seeing many dollar-for-dollar refinances.
“The margins and the rates aren’t really there unless someone’s left on some really crappy rate or they’ve been in a non-conforming loan, that’s really the only opportunity to get someone on a dollar-for-dollar refinance real bang for their buck at the moment.
“But if they want to do debt consolidation or something else, that’s where we can save them more money.”
Smith said customers who had an old car loan or lease or a number of credit cards could then consolidate that debt. They often needed to do this to put them in a better financial position so they could afford to borrow the amount they needed for a home loan or to upgrade their home.
