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The growing offerings from non-bank lenders has been a boon for borrowers – such as the self-employed – who benefit from their open-minded approach to lending. We sit down with Tony MacRae, Bluestone Home Loans chief commercial officer, to learn a little more about specialist lending and why it’s a compelling growth opportunity for brokers.
Q. What’s the most important thing for brokers to understand about specialist lending?
Specialist lending, alt-doc lending, near-prime lending is not about lower credit quality. It’s about understanding the circumstances and recognising not everything fits into a nice little box.
There is a solution and an answer for most customers [and that comes back to] delving in and being open minded and telling the full story. We want to know the bad stuff as well as the good stuff because we can address what we know, what’s in front of us and move forward.
Q. How has specialist lending filled a gap in the market for self-employed borrowers?
If you specifically look at the self-employed, their income can fluctuate; it can be seasonal. So, if you look at just their tax return or other more formal documentation, it may not paint a true picture of really how that self-employed person is travelling.
Having alternative documentation to prove serviceability, such as BAS statements, accountant’s letters – or even just bank statements – is absolutely critical.
The key point is really understanding the story that sits behind that customer, whether they be self-employed or someone who has had a financial hiccup.
Q. Why are brokers in prime position to service self-employed borrowers?
Brokers are like any small business and any self-employed person; they want to grow their business, they want to look for opportunities and they want to look for niches that maybe the competition isn’t playing in.
I think this is a space where specialist lenders can fill a gap in the market and genuinely help brokers grow their business and move into styles of lending and work with groups of customers that they may have thought were a little bit too ‘hard basket’.
The beauty of that is when you fulfil a customer’s needs that maybe has been told no in the past, that becomes a really loyal advocate that brings other business into that broker as well.
Q. What do brokers need to do to succeed with borrowers with specialist finance needs?
The first thing is to have that sense of curiosity and not accept that there’s a group of customers out there that you can’t service. That’s really essential here.
But then I would [also] say look to a lender like Bluestone. We’ve taken an approach to work with brokers on an education-first approach. We do webinars. We do face-to-face education. We do PD days, and in May, we’re doing a national roadshow. We’ll be going to all the major centres around Australia with the theme of ‘curiosity’ and showing how asking the right questions can lead to growth in your business.
It’s about ensuring that brokers know there are alternatives and know what they need to look for, the questions that they need to ask, the information that they need to provide so they can be comfortable with the more challenging customers or the customers that don’t fit the mainstream.
Q. Why should brokers use Bluestone?
The broking industry has been around for over 30 years now. Bluestone has been around for 25 years of that. We were born out of providing solutions and options for brokers and borrowers that couldn’t get it through mainstream. That’s still at the core of our DNA.
If you aren’t writing Bluestone loans, just reach out. We’d love to talk and present our solutions and options to brokers and borrowers.
We think it’s a great time to be a specialist lender and [we] love helping Australians into homes and solving their financial needs.
To find out more about the Bluestone National Road Show, click here.
Tune in to hear more!
Find out more about what Bluestone is doing to help brokers better support self-employed borrowers in the In Focus podcast episode, ‘How brokers can benefit from a specialist approach’ here:
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