FAQs

We offer comprehensive lending services to a wide range of clients, structuring you borrowing in the most effective way, while choosing the lender that is most suitable for your situation.

We assist you throughout the whole process from your initial enquiry, extensive assessment of your borrowing capacity, selecting the right lender and structure for your needs, preparing your loan application, before finally helping you all the way through to settlement.

How can you help me?

We will look at your situation and provide analysis and guidance with your options for whatever your goals are, from purchasing your first home to restructuring your large investment portfolio.

Our process and experience will provide you with the most comprehensive analysis and solutions for your lending goals.

How are you different?

We approach all scenarios and loan applications with a higher level of analysis, attention to detail and knowledge of lender credit policies than our competitors. This allows us to have a more detailed understanding of your situation and objectives, as well as provide more comprehensive solutions.

Due to our high level of analysis and knowledge of lender credit policy, we have an extremely high (over 95%) percentage of our clients receive formal approval on their finance applications, saving you time and ensuring that you receive approval with your lender of choice.

What kind of clients do you work with?

We work with a wide range of clients across Australia, from first-home buyers to experienced property investors, with the goal of providing excellent service and outcomes for our clients.
Examples of our clients include:

First Home Buyers at all stages of life
Homeowners looking to use equity in their existing home to upgrade to a new home
New investors looking to purchase their first investment property
Experienced property investors looking to expand or restructure their portfolio
Homeowners looking to use equity in their existing home for investment purposes (including shares and property)
Existing home loan holders looking to refinance to a lower interest rate
Families looking to build their dream home
Investors looking to use their superannuation to invest in property

Where are your clients based?

While most of our clients are based in Brisbane, we have experience working with clients all across Australia, including non-residents.

We are happy to come to you in person if you are based in the Greater Brisbane area or meet via Zoom for long distance clients, working around your schedule and needs to make the entire experience as easy for you as possible.

Do you need a licence to provide credit services?

Yes, we are an authorised credit representative (CRN 527 355) of Connective Credit Services Pty Ltd (ACL Number 389328) as required under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act.

We are also a member of both the Mortgage and Finance Association (MFAA) and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). As members of the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) we must uphold the highest level of excellence when helping clients with their finances.

The members of each organisation must meet a minimum standard in experience, education and ongoing training to maintain membership each year and as active members, we commit to upholding these standards, ensuring we maintain their high levels of compliance, integrity, and professionalism with all of our mortgage clients.

We maintain the highest standard of training and education, as well as compliance with government regulations.

When should I talk to a Mortgage Broker?

If you are interested in seeing how much you can borrow for your first home, considering an investment property purchase, or simply wondering whether you can bring down the rate on your existing home loan, we are here to assist.

Don’t hesitate to get in contact with us if you have any questions about how we can assist you.

What’s your philosophy when it comes to borrowing?

We pride ourselves on being experts in our field. Having a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of a wide range of information relating to lending as well as experience dealing with a large number of different loan scenarios allows us to provide a service to the client that will allow them to achieve their goals and receive the best solution for their situation.

How much do your services cost?

Our services are completely free for all home and investment loans. We get paid by the lenders for doing the work, collating your loan application and meeting with you. This work would otherwise be done by a bank manager or branch lender so you get access to the same rates as if you went to the lender directly.

The benefit for you is that unlike when dealing with one bank, we can help you work with a wider variety of lenders and get the best options that work for you choosing from our panel of over 50 banks and lenders!

Can I get a better deal going direct to the bank?

Going directly to a bank limits your options to one lender. Our service includes comparisons of a number of banks and non-bank lenders, all of which offer different policy niches and pricing. This allows us to make a comprehensive recommendation on the most suitable lender and product for you and your situation.

In addition, going directly to the bank (especially if you are an existing customer) may not result in the bank giving you their most competitive rate or suitable products for your situation. Lenders tend to offer their most competitive rates to new borrowers and are reluctant to give discounts to existing customers.

Wouldn’t it be easy to apply with a bank where I already hold existing accounts?

Convenience is the biggest reason why people go to a bank direct but you could potentially miss out on saving thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage by not using a mortgage broker. Even if it may be more convenient to apply with a bank where you already hold existing accounts, it doesn’t necessarily ensure that you’ll get a smooth loan application process. Plus, bank staff tend to be moved around a lot and good performers are often promoted into management positions so they’re not even seeing customers anymore. Some even become mortgage brokers themselves.

How can I be sure you will recommend a suitable loan?

Before recommending lenders and loan structures to clients, we rigorously assess your situation to ensure that the lenders and structures we are recommending are right for you. This includes comprehensive analysis of your borrowing capacity in addition to fully understanding your situation to ensure that your loan application meets the credit policy of the selected lender.

Since January 2021, Mortgage Brokers are bound by the Best Interests Duty; it is the obligation for all brokers to act in the client’s best interest as part of their obligations. This obligation ensures that any loan recommended to clients must be in their best interests and suitable for their financial position.

How does applying for a loan work?

The beginning stages largely revolve around figuring out your goals and collecting information to help us make a preliminary assessment. From here we will go away and analyse your situation and structure your lending in the most suitable way, before coming back with a comparison of multiple lenders. This includes extensive analysis of your financial position to determine your borrowing capacity, as well as discussing your situation directly to a number of lenders to ensure that you meet their credit policy.

From here, we will prepare applications with the lender you have selected and lodge your application, keeping you updated all the way through to settlement. We will strive to make the process as easy and stress-free for you as possible.

Do you choose particular banks to get a higher incentive?

Did you know that there are some mortgage brokers that advertise that they are paid the same no matter which lender they choose? This is actually a very clever marketing trick.

If a lender pays low commissions then these brokers do not add them to their panel of lenders! For example, NAB and a few other lenders pay lower commissions to mortgage brokers so are not on the lender panel of either Aussie Home Loans or Mortgage Choice.

As we are not part of a franchise group we can do business with any lender that works with mortgage brokers. This means that you get more choice and a better range of loan products.

Are you owned by a bank?

Next Home Loans is a privately owned Mortgage broker. We are not owned by a bank – which is more common in the industry than you might think. Did you know…

Aussie Home Loans is owned by the Commonwealth Bank (CBA).
Mortgage Choice is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and has several banks as shareholders.
Fast, Plan and Choice are owned by Advantedge (a division of NAB).
Many others are private companies with undisclosed shareholders.

Next Home Loans is a 100% privately-owned Australian company with no lenders as shareholders.

Being privately owned means that we are not affected by any conflicts of interest when we give you your home loan recommendations.

We are also covered under the Best Interest Duty, which came into effect on 1 January 2021 and says by law we need to assess the best interests of a customer and prioritise a consumer’s interest when providing credit assistance.

While Mortgage Brokers like Next Home Loans are legally obligated to act in a consumer’s best interests, best interest duty doesn’t apply to banks. In other words, we must always act in your best interest but if you go to a bank directly then the bank can act in their own interests and not in those of a borrower.

In order to provide you with access to as many loan options as possible, we use an aggregator called Connective. We are able to leverage their negotiation power and volume of loans that they write to provide a wide range of home loan options, at the best possible rate.

Will using a Mortgage Broker impact my credit file?

Prior to lodging your application, we may request to view your credit file (with your consent), however, this will be listed as an access of a file and not an enquiry and will not have any affect your credit score.

Should you proceed with a loan application, as with any credit enquiry this will have an affect on your credit file. As long as there are not a large number of enquiries this will not have a major impact. We have a very high approval rate from the loans that we lodge, so we would not anticipate multiple enquiries to occur for any client that we are assisting.

How long will a preliminary assessment take?

Depending on the complexity of your situation an assessment can either be very quick or require further analysis and correspondence with external parties to ensure that we are giving you the most accurate information and the most options for any potential borrowing.

A simple scenario of PAYG employees with a deposit saved and no other debt looking to assess their borrowing capacity can often result in a quick turnaround, however, a more complex situation (self-employed, multiple existing properties, alternative income, security type / location differences, etc.) will require us to spend more time before coming back to you with an answer.

Here are some of the questions that we’re often asked and their answers. If you can’t see your question here, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

What does Next Home loans do?