Why approaching multiple mortgage brokers is the best cost-saving strategy

With more home loan options available to Australian homebuyers than ever, how can you be sure you’re getting the best deal? After all, deregulation has created a healthier cost environment, but shopping for a mortgage is far more complex.

In this article, we’ll look at how mortgage brokers help borrowers connect with multiple lenders, offer assistance with applications, guidance with products, and drive down home loan interest rates. We’ll also explore how Joust Instant Match can help you find the best brokers for your specific needs.

Mortgage brokers help borrowers navigate a complex lender landscape

For many Australians, the difficulties start when they try to compare mortgages. It’s a great time to consider home ownership, but even though lower interest rates are a stand-out feature of modern Australian home loans, they don’t paint the entire picture. Lenders also offer a vast range of innovative products and add-ons designed to meet the needs and ambitions of a more diverse bunch of Australian owner-occupiers, first-time buyers, and investors.

Solutions like higher Loan-to-Value Ratio (LVR) products, offset accounts, redraw facilities, professional packages, and lender’s mortgage insurance have all opened home loans up to more people and offer the possibility of more tailored and cost-effective home loans. Yet, all those things have made accurate comparisons far more time-consuming and frustrating.

It’s an all too familiar problem – and the issues that face today’s borrowers aren’t exclusive to the home loan industry. While the web has made information far more available, it’s not always the information we need. For a start, when you’re shopping for a mortgage, home loan comparison websites can only present a rather vague and inaccurate idea of what’s on offer. They advertise an ideal, displaying products and interest rates awarded only to model borrowers with significant deposits and substantial earnings.

That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because nobody’s perfect – and lenders ultimately judge us according to a profile that reflects the fact. What’s more, while they provide a great alternative to comparison sites – offering unique and potentially beneficial product portfolios – even brokers have accreditations with a limited number of lenders and aggregators.

It’s a black box. You don’t know how helpful any given broker can be until you sit down with them. In turn, brokers can’t understand how suitable their portfolio might be until they get your information. That means homebuyers are unable to get a comprehensive picture of all the best options out there without much effort, legwork, or a lot of luck.

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Yet, brokers still perform an essential role in helping homebuyers find a cost-effective mortgage – and talking with the right one can be hugely beneficial. If you want to understand why brokers are so useful in 2021, it’s helpful to start by taking a quick look at how things used to be. Australian lending has changed for the better over the last twenty-five years – but finding the right mortgage on your own can still be challenging.

The Australian home loan industry: then and now

Before mortgage lending deregulation, Australian homebuyers had one option. The big national banks offered the only real route to ownership, a pretty limited range of products. They also maintained a significant gap between the national cash rate and average mortgage rates. If you had non-standard borrowing requirements, like a blemish on your credit history, a lower income, or you worked for yourself, borrowing was difficult or impossible.

Things began to change with the arrival of non-bank and international lenders in the mid-nineties, leading to an ongoing revolution. These days, a combination of innovative technology and a diverse network of financiers, aggregators, and expert brokers has seen mortgage rates fall more in line with how the Reserve Bank of Australia sets the national cash rate.

More choice meant borrowers needed a new way to connect with lenders. Australian mortgage brokers haven’t always been around, but they’ve fast become part of the very fabric of Australian home lending. Back in 2003, brokers accounted for just a quarter of home loans arranged in the country, but in 2010, they settled around a third of home loans. By 2017, independent research attributed more than 55% of Australian home loans to these mortgage professionals.

To understand why it’s vital for homebuyers to connect with multiple mortgage brokers in 2021, it’s helpful to look at how things used to be. Australian lending has changed for the better over the last twenty-five years – but finding the right home loan can still be challenging. 

Mortgage brokers: The missing link in an evolving Australian mortgage industry

So, why do Australians increasingly trust brokers? Well, making a case for brokers isn’t hard, and it’s certainly not complicated. They’re a direct result of industry transformation, their success driven by the changing needs of homebuyers

• Brokers provide the perfect way to access a more complex home loan market: About half the home loans arranged via brokers are with Australia’s big banks, while the rest come from a varied panel of alternative lenders.
  
• Accessing even a single home loan professional results in more choice: On average, brokers partner with thirty-four different lenders. Comparing multiple broker portfolios and connecting with the right one offers borrowers the chance of massive rewards.
• Teaming up with the right broker isn’t just about finding your perfect lender match: They do most of their work while helping you prepare and submit your application – then chasing everything up until you get a successful conclusion.
• Mortgage brokers almost exclusively get paid by lending institutions, not borrowers. When you consider they’re such an experienced bunch, it’s difficult to see a downside to having a broker in your corner.

Independent lenders and their broker partners have made the mortgage industry more equitable, versatile, and user-friendly than ever. Homebuyers no longer need to settle or beg for what’s on offer at their local bank – and competition has forced those very banks to up their games.

Today’s borrowers can potentially connect with hundreds of lenders who operate without extensive and costly branch networks and with fewer overheads. Mortgage brokers don’t just provide practical help and advice; they’re often the only available conduit to a thriving lender marketplace, offering substantial home loan savings. It’s hardly surprising that ASIC had this to say in 2017:

“From a consumer outcomes perspective, in a well-performing market, brokers can help match the needs of the consumer with the right home loan product and lender, navigate the home loan application process, which can be daunting for many consumers, improve consumer understanding of home loans and financial literacy.”

Joust Instant Match: the final piece of the mortgage puzzle

Everything boils down to the fact that, in 2021, finding your ideal mortgage product should be quicker and simpler. Getting instant, accurate quotes should be a given, too – so what’s the solution?

It probably seems startlingly evident by now – finding the best mortgage deal is just a case of comparing as many home loan options and features as possible – based on who you are. Engaging a mortgage broker is more effective than comparing a limited range of products with a single lender. Comparing offerings from multiple brokers opens up even more potential for savings. Yet, a fast-evolving Australian mortgage industry has struggled to make that a quick and simple process – until now.

• Joust Instant Match uses a unique marketplace approach: The service expands the reach of both homebuyers and mortgage professionals and connects them based on their profiles and products. Homebuyers target only relevant lenders without wasting time comparing unsuitable options.
  
• Connect with up to three brokers: Joust matches borrowers with up to three home loan professionals. We do that based on an understanding of their range of offerings and unique portfolios.
• Interact with multiple mortgage brokers: Instant Match is the only way Australian homebuyers can quickly compare portfolios and advice from multiple suitable brokers. Borrowers can access valuable information about products and solutions and the recommendations and perspectives of the responding brokers themselves – in real time. 
• Fully customised products and quotes: Joust Instant Match enables lenders and brokers to focus their efforts and connections more effectively and efficiently. They assess your circumstances, repayment capabilities, and creditworthiness before they respond, while we evaluate their portfolios for suitability in advance. 
  

Everyone benefits from a marketplace approach. With such diversity available, assessing multiple brokers based on their specific connections can only help homebuyers. For the brokers themselves, providing products and information from the outset tailored to unique borrower profiles, borrowing capacities, and different ownership ambitions makes perfect sense. And that’s precisely why you’ll find some of the country’s stand-out, top-performing home loan professionals partnering with Joust.

The wait is over. Now you can access relevant, tailored mortgage offers almost instantly and find the best possible interest rates, features, and add-ons. Create your unique “Loan Profile” today. Connect more quickly with more brokers, and harness all the power of Australia’s diverse home lending landscape with Joust Instant Match.