A Top 100 broker says focusing on niches and being clear about policies is important
Well-respected broker and Mortgage Professional Australia Top 100 Brokers inclusion Aaron Christie-David continues to make waves in the industry for his fair, savvy and meticulous approach to broking.
Christie-David is the managing director and finance broker at Sydney-based high performance mortgage broking business Atelier Wealth – and has run the business with his wife Bernadette since it its establishment in 2016.
Christie-David alluded to what has helped Atelier Wealth’s rapid rise in the saturated and competitive industry that is mortgage broking.
“What makes it so successful is that Bernadette and I specialise in particular niches,” he said.
“Bernadette focuses on commercial, self-managed super funds (SSMF) ad self-employed lender – whereas my focus is regarding investment lending.
“We also have worked hard on improving our productivity by reducing our inbound emails by changing how we handled our inboxes.”
When asked about some of the major challenges his business experienced in 2019, Christie-David pointed to the royal commission along with the level vigilance and diligence required for each submission as two glaring issues which hindered productivity.
“We find some lenders have transitioned from looking to workshop and discuss a deal with their credit team to suddenly looking for reasons to not want to approve,” he said.
“The moving goalposts are part of the broker role but our confidence in placing deals probably has taken a hit and impacts our client experience.
“The time per deal upfront and during has increased which means our capacity is being consumed with the extra work and rework required.”
Whilst they’re challenges that have been tough to navigate for a number of brokers in the industry, Christie-David spoke about his approach when trying to best overcome them.
“We made sure we were very clear about policies through training, engaging our business development managers and credit teams before submission in case something does require extra attention,” he said.
“We have made sure we’re managing our client expectations that we cannot guarantee a seamless and stress free experience which has helped reduce their inbound contact and we're trying to be proactive with updates to reduce stress levels.
“We also aim to submit quality applications with a view that we want to have one touch approvals with our lender partners and reduce the impact of asking for more documents from our clients during the process.
“That’s something we're working on but certainly haven't mastered yet.”
