Client becomes Aussie broker in positive career change

From customer to broker – that’s the inspiring career change Veenu Bharara recently made, and it’s a decision that’s given her a new lease on life.

Bharara (pictured above), who lives in the Sydney suburb of Pymble, was a customer of Aussie Campbelltown broker and franchise owner Selvi Sugiharto, who helped her secure finance to purchase their family home in 2018 and more recently refinance an investment property.

After working as IT quality engineer and product manager at Atlassian, Bharara took a year-long sabbatical from a highly demanding role and decided she wanted to change direction.

It was Bharara’s enduring friendship with Sugiharto and a desire to pursue her passion for financial literacy that led her to join the world of mortgage broking. She joined Sugiharto’s Aussie franchise as a broker in February, part of a team of four brokers.

Bharara spoke to MPA about what led her to become a broker, the challenges and advantages of her new role, and her mission to help customers become financially literate.

Veenu Bharara’s career change

After migrating to Australia from India in 2008, with her husband and now 18-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, she secured a job at Atlassian, where she worked for 15 years.

“During COVID, I started asking myself, ‘Is this what I’m still passionate about?’ The company was definitely growing big and the kids needed me at home more,” Bharara said.

“So at the end of 2022, I decided to take a sabbatical, so for the whole of 2023 I was allowed to take 12 months off.”

With more time to concentrate on organising her family’s finances, Bharara became interested in the concept of financial independence, especially FIRE (financial independence retire early), which means earning enough passive income from property, a share portfolio, other investments and super to live on.

“I started to research where we are financially and how much we need to live comfortably. When you come from a normal working background you see your parents doing that, you think this is a way of life – working until you retire.”

Bharara came to the realisation during COVID that there was more to life than just continually working, “there has to be something better”.

She said she focused on financial literacy, especially as the family was surviving on just her husband’s salary at the time, sharing with others what she was doing to try and live better.

In the middle of 2023, Bharara said she wasn’t ready to return to work – her daughter was studying for her HSC but she wanted to spend more time with her son, who is neurodiverse and starting Year 6 in 2024.

Sugiharto, her broker at the time, knew Bharara wasn’t working and asked her what she wanted to do.

“I was telling her about my son because she’s very close to us and we talk like friends. I wanted something more flexible because I want to be around him more. She said, ‘Do you want to come and join me?’

“Selvi had recently moved from being a mobile broker to a franchisee so she definitely had more opportunities.”

Bharara said she knew she wanted to do something in finance, and saw broking as a way to teach people about financial literacy so she decided to give it a go.

After completing a Certificate IV in Finance and Mortgage Broking and the Aussie onboarding program, Bharara started her broking career with Aussie Campbelltown in February.

Bharara said Sugiharto was amazing and supportive, giving her the flexibility to work from home and only come into the store one day a week.

“She has really encouraged me, when it was getting closer to onboarding, I was getting a bit jittery –‘will I be able to do this justice?’. I also knew that I need a mentor who I can trust and I knew that I can trust her blindly.”

Bharara said she started her work day after dropping off her son to school, taking a break between 3pm and 5pm and then doing a lot of client calls after 5pm, when it was more convenient for customers. “So this helps me and helps my clients too.”

The broking experience

Bharara gave kudos to the Lendi Group for its Aussie onboarding process, which she described as awesome.

“They have an eight-week graduate program and that has been amazing … the first two weeks was very intensive, after that we were talking to real clients … at the end of it, I thought, ‘I can do this.’”

Being a former product manager meant Bharara knew how to communicate with clients and Sugiharto had told her she “was picking things up very quickly”.

Motivated by the desire to share financial literacy skills with clients, Bharara said she was doing this one on one but the aim was to eventually scale this up.

“I want to help especially first home buyers get into the market. A lot of people came up to me at this networking event, mums and dads asking me to talk to their kids in their 20s who have no idea how to save money.”

Bharara said people often focused on spending money now, on items such as new cars and fancy clothes, but they needed to realise there was another more sustainable way of living. “If you’re earning money, save some for tomorrow.”

As a new broker she said Sugiharto was always available to help her with a tricky customer or scenario.

“She’s also teaching a lot of other things that I don’t know yet in this industry, such as how to network, who are the right people I should know.”

This included learning how to run your own business given that Bharara had come from a PAYG background.

Bharara said one of the first loan applications she did as a broker was for one of her friends who was going through a divorce, about to attend a remediation meeting and wanted to buy the house from her husband.

Needing to prove that she had the capacity to purchase, Bharara’s friend reached out to her after seeing her social media posts and asked her for help.

“She asked me, ‘will you be able to do that?’ because she knew that I had just started as a broker and I said ‘why not, let me do that’. At that time I was still in the graduate program and I had a fantastic graduate manager who said ‘we will get it done, don’t worry’.

“We had the pre-approval for her on the day of the remediation meeting so that gives you happiness and keeps you motivated, that you’re personally able to help somebody.”

For people contemplating embarking on a mortgage broking career, Bharara said they should realise it took a while to build up clientele and earn a regular income given it was a commission-based role.

It was difficult for new brokers supporting a family unless their partner had a full-time job.

“Providing home loans to people is a very big responsibility and you want to do it in a proper way – the life cycle can be long and sometimes that can frustrate people, especially if you’re relying on a regular income.

“Trail is going to take a little longer and this is where you should be able to sustain yourself for that initial six to 12-month period.”

The flexibility of broking as a career was a big drawcard and Bharara said it also made her want to be more involved in her local community, such as working with small businesses in her local chamber of commerce and networking with other groups.

Market trends

Bharara said a few customers were refinancing but the number looking to refinance had decreased a lot because many people had already refinanced to the lowest rate given that the cash rate had not moved for months. “So everybody has kind of got the best deal and have established.

“There’s a lot of movement with investment properties, especially people who have some equity built in or have some extra cash and are looking to buy.

“I do have a lot of first-home buyers too but they’re not able to buy in Sydney.”

Many first home buyers were not aware of assistance available such as the 5% deposit scheme and first home owners grant. Bharara said she was also educating customers about LVR and LMI. 

What do you think are the main career benefits of mortgage broking? Share your comments below