Broker-only lender opens for business

The mortgage lender, originally acquired by mortgage management company Mortgage House in 2008, had expected to relaunch as a digital lender late last year but delayed opening its doors to allow for an “embellished” range of products after noting the surging first home buyer and investor demand.

As such, it now offers owner-occupier and investor mortgages (both fixed and variable) at loan-to-value ratios between 60 per cent and 95 per cent for purchase and refinance.

Speaking to The Adviser, Mortgage House founder and chief executive, Ken Sayer, said that the digital lender aims to provide the broker channel with unconditional offers in less than a week at rates comparable to those offered by direct-to-consumer neobanks (i.e. below 2 per cent for 60 per cent LVR loans).

“The broker feedback that I receive is that they hate doing all the work [on a loan] and then losing the deal to a [direct-to-consumer] neobank,” Mr Sayer said.

“I just want to protect them from falling prey to that situation, so we’re offering Mortgage Street loans with 60 per cent LVR neobank pricing with full commission.”

While the initial offering is for “AAA assets for AAA borrowers” - namely PAYG borrowers - Mr Sayer suggested that Mortgage Street would be expanding its offering to include SMSF, personal loans, car loans and commercial loans – as well as moving into low-doc, non-resident, and non-comforming segments – in future.

“We’ll be rolling those out one step at a time. As brokers get used to us and we get used to them, we’ll roll out something new every couple of months,” Mr Sayer said.

“But, for right here right now, the sweet spot is PAYG from 60 per cent.”

Mortgage Street is currently available to brokers operating under an aggregator that has Mortgage House on its lender panel, or to those with their own Australian Credit Licence (ACLs) who can accredit directly with the lender.

[Related: New non-bank lender set to enter broker channel]