One-man broker firms untenable

Loan Market director Daniel Pym told The Adviser’s Elite Broker podcast it is currently too demanding for a broker to singlehandedly manage a home loan deal given the arduous compliance requirements and the expenses involved in the process.

“There’s so much work you have to do to take a deal from beginning to end and if you try and take it on, on your own, you can do it but it’s really draining,” Mr Pym said.

“It’s probably not, in my opinion, effective anymore. You need a team of people to help you.”

He said the living expenses forms, which lenders require to assess an applicant’s borrowing capacity, are onerous and placing pressure on mortgage brokers.

“Those living expenses forms are killing everyone, I think,” Mr Pym said.

“If we could just get some standardisation across lenders where one lender would treat expenses as discretionary and others would treat that as mandatory, that would save a lot of time.”

For brokers who are at the beginning of their career, Mr Pym suggested they speak to more experienced brokers in their firms to guide them through the complexity.

“What I did was I leaned on and asked guidance from the best brokers in Loan Market,” he said.

“You don’t have to re-create the wheel. The formula is already there. You just have to see what other brokers do and pick what you like, adopt it and just do it.”  

Daniel Pym, who has 18 years of experience as a mortgage broker, recently spoke to The Adviser’s Annie Kane on the Elite Broker’s podcast.

You can listen to the rest of the podcast here.

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[Related: Why this Sydney broker is venturing into new markets]