More new home loans than ever are being settled through mortgage brokers, peak body says
Mortgage brokers are responsible for more than two in every three new home loans written, according to new data from the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA).
Between July and September, mortgage brokers facilitated a record 66.9% of all new home loans, according to a study commissioned by the association. That’s 6.8 percentage points higher than the previous market-share record of 60.1% achieved in the September quarter, and a 12-percentage-point spike from the 54.9% posted in the September 2019 quarter.
The total value of mortgages settled through brokers posted the largest quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year increases since reporting began, according to the MFAA. A record $93.42 billion in loans were settled in the quarter – a 62.5% year-on-year spike from the $57.47 billion in loans settled in the same period last year, and a 20% increase over the previous record of $77.75 billion set in the June 2021 quarter.
Mike Felton, CEO of the MFAA, said the results were driven by ongoing customer referrals, demonstrating that customers are benefitting from both the service their broker is providing and the policy changes made across the sector.
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“Thus market share is appropriate recognition of an industry that has implemented significant reforms which continue to drive consumer trust and confidence in the mortgage broking sector,” Felton said. “Not only do mortgage brokers provide consumers with choice, experience and convenience, they now provide an unrivalled best-interests duty, which further differentiates our channel and provides yet another compelling reason to use the services of a mortgage broker. What makes this result even more remarkable is that it coincided with extended periods of lockdown in New South Wales, Victoria and other states.”
Felton also spoke about the impact of improved turnaround times on the broker sector.
“This result also reflects the improvement in lender application approval turnarounds in the third quarter and highlights the type of broker market share that can be achieved when lender turnarounds for broker-introduced business are less stifled,” he said.
