How much does it cost to use a broker?

Every brokerage is different in how they charge fees to clients. Brokers are remunerated by the banks usually a month or two after your loan settles. However there are circumstances where we may not be remunerated by the bank if you are selling/repaying your loan early and in this case, some brokers may charge a fee for service.

Here at the Broker Society, we do not charge additional fees for service to clients if we will be paid by the bank, however in some circumstances we do charge a fee for Pre Approvals as they can incur a lot of hours work and go unpaid if the client does not proceed. In this case, we usually charge a refundable fee (refundable once your pre approval is settled) In all circumstances, we provide a written quote outlining any fees and charges we may charge to our clients if this is the case.

How Long Does a Home Loan Process take?

This depends on lender to lender. Some lenders are incredibly fast and some are much slower. We take this into consideration depending on your circumstances. If you have a sensitive timeline and the speed of your application is the most important thing, we will prioritise this in our research of lenders before proceeding to application. The most important thing is for our customers to provide all of their information as soon as possible as we cannot get working on your application without all of the missing puzzle pieces.

Do you get paid more commissions by some banks than others?

Generally speaking, no. There are a handful of lenders who pay a slightly lower commission than the rest, however we are bound by Best Interest Duty, which means legally we are obligated to act in your best interest, even at the detriment of our own commissions or payments from any lenders. 

What do you do with our information?

We have a Privacy Policy page on our website that outlines all of the information you need to see to ensure you have comfort that we are protecting your sensitive information.

Why do you offer some lenders that we have never heard of?

This is the amazing part of working with a broker.We have access to non mainstream lenders that are not ‘the Big 4’. There are many lenders in the market, some of which are broker only products, and by using a broker you also get access to these lenders. Commonly there are 4 types of lenders:

• Big 4 Lenders (the main ones you have heard of such as NAB, CBA, ANZ, Westpac)

• Second Tier Lenders (Smaller but well know lenders such as Bankwest, ING, Suncorp)

• Third Tier or Non Conforming Lenders (lenders who offer unique offerings such as Low Doc/Alt Doc Loans such as Bluestone, Pepper Money, Resimac etc)

• White Label Lenders (Lenders who have purchased funds from larger funders and add their own label to them such as Connective Essentials, Connective Elevate) these white label lenders are usually buying money from other big brand lenders and re-branding the product. This means they generally don't have a branch so can onlend the money to you cheaper than the branded lender can

If you have any additional questions, our team would be more than happy to assist your enquiry. Please send us an email at kate@thebrokersociety.com.au