Streamlining business the key to work/life balance, says leading broker
While brokers face a range of everyday challenges, maintaining a focus on what you do best and keeping a strong reputation for giving clients sound advice remains the cornerstone of being a good broker.
This is according to award-winning commercial broker and managing director of Sydney-based Bayside Residential and Commercial Mortgages’ Kevin Wheatley.
“Our success has come from being as knowledgeable as you can professionally be,” Wheatley said.
“Construction and commercial finance have been our real niche. Our consistent growth year-on-year has come on the back of trust and best outcome; never try to oversell your business with misleading information – that will a recipe to disaster and failure.”
Wheatley (pictured above), who ranked fourth on Mortgage Professional Australia’s Top Commercial Brokers for 2023, said he felt fortunate there had been a degree of consistency in his business whether it was in the higher-demand cycle or when economic environments became more difficult.
“I know our creditable brand and reputation has instilled confidence in our clients.”
Wheatley said it was important when starting out in business that owners had a clear idea about the scale of growth they were aiming for.
“This is always going to be challenging, as every entrepreneur has their own structured modus operandi,” he said. “However, to be successful there are no 9am to 5pm working regimes. “
Wheatley, who has more than four decades of experience in business, logistics, and economics lecturing, combined with extensive travel across key Asian markets, admitted that starting a business would always be challenging, but over time it brought its own rewards.
“Once you streamline your business, you will find your work/life balance improves and becomes sustainable. I get to meet some of the most amazing people. My finance career has taken me to many countries around the world, which definitely defined who I am today.”
Wheatley said the current economic climate brought with it a number of challenges, with high-interest rates “a major issue from a debt-servicing point for first-time buyers on an average income”.
Another issue facing the sector according to Wheatley, was brokers being penalised with clawbacks from banks as a result of the cash rebates many banks offered.
“This has created high volumes of borrower churn, which denies the brokers remuneration for their laborious hours processing the applications,” he said.
Wheatley lists a shortage of saleable properties on the market, staying up to date with legal compliance and industry obligations, poor support from some lenders’ BDMs and [tight] turnaround times due to staffing shortages as just some of the things that are giving brokers headaches.
“[While] I am very happy with my aggregator SFG, I am hearing many stories from brokers on how unsupportive their own aggregators are performing.”
Wheatley said his business saw a wide range of clients with a broad mix of financial requirements such as first home buyers entering the market, borrowers looking for better refinancing options - especially coming off low-fixed rates, and a high volume of commercial property investors looking for higher yields.
However, he said there were plenty of opportunities for brokers to make a positive difference to people’s personal lives or business outcomes.
“Recently we successfully managed to raise capital for two developments in Victoria for one of our long-term clients of 13 years, the two capital raises were for an overall amount of $306 million.”
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