Loan Market's Renee Robins decided to pursue broking after a stint operating a dive boat in Thailand
Wollongong-based Loan Market broker, Renee Robins has already won accolades for her loan writing volumes and has only been in the industry for less than two years.
Although she started out as a new-to-industry broker, Robins came from a background in investment banking and hedge funds with over 10 years experience in the finance industry. But what contributed to her decision to pursue broking was when she took five years off as a diving instructor in Thailand during her late twenties.
Robins says working on a dive boat was a great opportunity to develop people skills and deal with many different types of personalities and nationalities.
“From the years of diving and running a dive boat I genuinely liked interacting with and helping people. So I figured this was a good mix,” Robins says of taking the broking path.
“I was lookng for a change that gave me work/life balance and we’re also looking to start a family, so I wanted an industry and a career that I could work around the family and not work in the CBD.”
She says through talking to different professionals and aggregators in the industry she realised how varied the support and skills were to a new broker.
“I figured if I’m going to make this change from a fairly successful career I would really want to get the knowledge and support that I’m doing it correctly – I didn’t want to accidently make mistakes because I hadn’t been trained enough or I didn’t know.”
Robins started her mortgage broking business in February 2014 after graduating from Loan Market’s Accelerated Mentoring Programme, its high quality and support of which played a big part in what drew her to the brand.
“To come into the Australian lending space was something that was foreign to me; the things that I learnt at the academy were all brand new.”
The mentorship program sees each participant have a mentor support them the whole way, until they settle $12 million. And her success since then has been apparent, as Australian Broker previously reported that Robins had been named sixth in Loan Market’s NSW Top 10 in September when she wrote nearly $5 million in settlements for the month.
New in town
Robins started out broking in Sydney and moved to Wollongong six months ago. Along with Wollongong, she also covers the areas of Shellharbour, Bulli and surrounding suburbs and is reeling in the rewards of an active referral partnership she established in July with local real estate agent, Ray White Albion Park.
“One of the benefits of going with Loan Market, because they are part of the Ray White family, is that you do have access to develop a relationship with individual Ray White offices,” says Robins.
“For me, that’s a really good entry to the local market - especially not being from this area, not really having connections and long histories with people here,” she says, explaining it has more of a community vibe to it than Sydney and that many people do business together that went to school from kindergarten.
Robins specialises in construction loans as she has personal knowledge and experience in this area which she finds translates into trust with her clients.
“I have investment properties and I’ve done construction - we’re building houses and I’m renovating one at the moment.”
Although her biggest business comes from refinancing, she says it is not always an option people take to straight away.
“People are generally sceptical and so they should be. They’ve normally not been looked after too well by their lenders - there is a bit of a stigmatism still in the industry.”
But at the end of the day, it is helping people that she enjoys most.
“My approach is to educate them as much as I am informing them,” says Robins. “I like seeing when you genuinely put clients into a product that is 100% suited to them - it’s not always about price. Different people require different things.”
She explains to the client all their options and why she might recommend a product that isn’t necessarily the cheapest, perhaps because of its features or their situation, such as if a client has time restraints then turnaround times of a lender play a bigger role.
“Some people are completely price sensitive and it’s great to put them in the absolute cheapest price on the market. Others want the love and care and attention that certain ongoing lenders will provide them and others want the flexibility to do whatever their next project is. So I like setting people up in a position where we know they are in something that is 100% geared to them and I know that if they hadn’t have seen me that they would not have been in as good a position as they are.”
Although she started out as a new-to-industry broker, Robins came from a background in investment banking and hedge funds with over 10 years experience in the finance industry. But what contributed to her decision to pursue broking was when she took five years off as a diving instructor in Thailand during her late twenties.
Robins says working on a dive boat was a great opportunity to develop people skills and deal with many different types of personalities and nationalities.
“From the years of diving and running a dive boat I genuinely liked interacting with and helping people. So I figured this was a good mix,” Robins says of taking the broking path.
“I was lookng for a change that gave me work/life balance and we’re also looking to start a family, so I wanted an industry and a career that I could work around the family and not work in the CBD.”
She says through talking to different professionals and aggregators in the industry she realised how varied the support and skills were to a new broker.
“I figured if I’m going to make this change from a fairly successful career I would really want to get the knowledge and support that I’m doing it correctly – I didn’t want to accidently make mistakes because I hadn’t been trained enough or I didn’t know.”
Robins started her mortgage broking business in February 2014 after graduating from Loan Market’s Accelerated Mentoring Programme, its high quality and support of which played a big part in what drew her to the brand.
“To come into the Australian lending space was something that was foreign to me; the things that I learnt at the academy were all brand new.”
The mentorship program sees each participant have a mentor support them the whole way, until they settle $12 million. And her success since then has been apparent, as Australian Broker previously reported that Robins had been named sixth in Loan Market’s NSW Top 10 in September when she wrote nearly $5 million in settlements for the month.
New in town
Robins started out broking in Sydney and moved to Wollongong six months ago. Along with Wollongong, she also covers the areas of Shellharbour, Bulli and surrounding suburbs and is reeling in the rewards of an active referral partnership she established in July with local real estate agent, Ray White Albion Park.
“One of the benefits of going with Loan Market, because they are part of the Ray White family, is that you do have access to develop a relationship with individual Ray White offices,” says Robins.
“For me, that’s a really good entry to the local market - especially not being from this area, not really having connections and long histories with people here,” she says, explaining it has more of a community vibe to it than Sydney and that many people do business together that went to school from kindergarten.
Robins specialises in construction loans as she has personal knowledge and experience in this area which she finds translates into trust with her clients.
“I have investment properties and I’ve done construction - we’re building houses and I’m renovating one at the moment.”
Although her biggest business comes from refinancing, she says it is not always an option people take to straight away.
“People are generally sceptical and so they should be. They’ve normally not been looked after too well by their lenders - there is a bit of a stigmatism still in the industry.”
But at the end of the day, it is helping people that she enjoys most.
“My approach is to educate them as much as I am informing them,” says Robins. “I like seeing when you genuinely put clients into a product that is 100% suited to them - it’s not always about price. Different people require different things.”
She explains to the client all their options and why she might recommend a product that isn’t necessarily the cheapest, perhaps because of its features or their situation, such as if a client has time restraints then turnaround times of a lender play a bigger role.
“Some people are completely price sensitive and it’s great to put them in the absolute cheapest price on the market. Others want the love and care and attention that certain ongoing lenders will provide them and others want the flexibility to do whatever their next project is. So I like setting people up in a position where we know they are in something that is 100% geared to them and I know that if they hadn’t have seen me that they would not have been in as good a position as they are.”
