Mega mortgage group formed

Two mortgage broking firms are combining their resources under The Mortgage Alliance banner to create a group with 43 offices and 120 mortgage brokers and planners who settle more than $1 billion of home loans each year.

The partners are already talking to several other regional mortgage broking firms interested in affiliating with the new venture and its origination figures should top $1.5 billion a year "in the near term," according to Carey Brunel, managing director of Property Pack, one of the partners. The other is Mortgage Link.

The benefits of creating a business of such scale include "the ability to be able to talk to the lenders at a completely different level," Brunel says.

"Instead of talking to the line managers, you’re talking to the people who set policy. The ability to provide those kinds of volumes provides better facilities for the clients who deal with our firm," he says.

The partners also spend considerable sums on technology and will now be able to share those costs, he says.

And the new company will have greater resources to put into staff training. "It’s extremely expensive to train and upskill staff. One of the concerns we all have is the quality of information in the work being done."

Brunel says the banking industry has been looking for major players to emerge within the industry and that it should lead to the less professional industry members leaving it because they won’t be able to compete.

The Mortgage Alliance is likely to expand the role of the broker to other areas such as advising on whether a particular property is a good investment, Brunel says. But he stresses that he doesn’t envisage entering the financial planning field.

"The expectation when you go to a mortgage broker is that you’re going to have a high level of expertise. Certainly, as time has gone on we are finding people are asking us for all sorts of information. We, as an industry, are going to have to expand the range of services we provide."

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