New Broker Q&A: Mohsen Shahsavarzdeh, In2Mortgages

Firstly, tell us a little about your journey to Australia?

In 2013, I arrived by boat and started my journey from Iran. We had to travel to Indonesia and then took a small boat to Christmas Island. We were detained as asylum seekers. I arrived with my mother and our journey was long and difficult. But I aim to inspire people by showing that even without the English language, one can become a successful broker in Australia. The detention was challenging, we had no opportunities for learning, my level of depression was high, and I was on treatment due to the traumas from the boat journey and detention. It was not an easy journey. We remained in detention for 19 months until we were released by the immigration department in January 2015.

What was the process of settling in Australia like for you?

I respect the government because we came illegally, but at the end of day we needed safety and Australia was the country that provided that. My mom was sick with a really bad depression. I was also depressed, but I had to stay strong.

They released us with a bridging visa, which means you do not have the right to work, to study, to learn English, or anything else. You’re just in a community. So it was from one detention to a bigger detention, which was called Sydney. Without having the proper visa, I joined the Sydney Bible College in Sydney and learned the Bible and English. I was also doing some volunteer jobs, a cash job, and then got work in a restaurant.

At the end of 2018 I got lucky, when I received a scholarship for asylum seekers from Western Sydney University, allowing me to pursue a bachelor of business. After university I started looking for jobs, but my temporary protection visa was expiring in nine months and no one wanted to employ me – I received 34 rejection letters.

Could you describe your previous job in Iran?

Back in Iran, I worked alongside my uncle in a foreign exchange office, similar to a small bank. I enjoyed working with numbers and assisting people. I had also completed the certificate of medicine, a qualification that could have led me to become a general practitioner, but that was my mother’s aspiration, not mine.

What was your first job upon arriving in Australia?

I secured work at ANZ and that was an amazing moment for me – I had a job in finance! It makes me a little bit emotional, but I love that moment.

But it was only a six-month contract and my visa was finishing after that. And then, it was another miracle in my life, I met my mentor and she told me, let’s go to a PD day. I thought, ‘What’s a PD day? Okay, let’s go’. I spent four hours looking at the screen, grappling with terms like “fixed rate” and “variable rate”.

The speaker was saying that a broker business is a people’s business and that was interesting for me. How come you can make money and help people? I had in the back of my mind, that I wanted to help my community. So I decided to be a broker and started as a support person. I learned from my mentor and chose Finsure to be my aggregator and since July 2022 I have been a broker.

Why did you make the decision to be an independent broker?

I realised that I can achieve much more independently, without limitations, and in my own way. So I decided to do it on my own and start supporting my community to help them achieve their dreams of buying a house, a car, or a business.

One of my conditions, if someone wants to be my client is that they are willing to learn from me.
They have to understand what is the repayment, why it’s fixed, why it’s variable, what is the offset account? They need to understand all of these things and then we can talk about their preferred loan amount.

And of course, for this community, it’s a little bit harder because most of them are self-employed, they need to know about the low doc, non-conforming banks, even opening a credit card for them is hard.

How many loans did you write in the first 12 months?

As of 1 July 2023 I wrote around $8 million from 1 July 2022. My mentor has helped me a lot and now I’m aiming for $10 million.

How do you find new clients? Is it fairly easy within this community?

It’s not easy actually, because as a refugee there are some trust issues to overcome and that makes it a little bit harder.

But once I explain everything and they see that the service is better than the bank, they send it to their friends. Word of mouth is usually church and the Persian community, the Arab community, and my customers from the restaurant.

Finally, what do you do in your spare time to unwind?

At the moment I’m making some educational videos about finance and money. This is my hobby at the moment to create videos.

To hear the full episode, you can go to New Broker from refugee to successful mortgage broker

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