After a life-altering accident forced Katherine Looke to leave her corporate career, she found a new path in mortgage and finance broking. Now specialising in essential services workers, the founder of First Look Finance reflects on her first 18 months in the industry and explains how diversification and networking are helping her build a business for long-term growth.
Q. What made you pursue broking as a career?
I liked the corporate world, but I thought I would try to pivot and try something new. I started studying to become a patient transport officer, then work my way up to become a paramedic.
This content is available exclusively to
The Adviser premium members.
Life threw me a curveball and I was in a car accident. I found myself in a position where I couldn’t work full time hours or as a patient transport officer. Within a very small time frame, I could no longer do what I was planning to do, which I’d spent six months trying to do.
I had to really sit down and think, “Well, what can I do that provides flexibility for me to do what I love, but to go to medical appointments and still work as hard as what I want to work at and achieve a monetary value of what I want to achieve?”.
And I came across broking. I did my certificate while I was on Transport Accident Commission (TAC) payments because I couldn’t work at that time. It was a now-or-never kind of thing.
Q. What types of loans are you specialising in?
On the residential side of things, I specialise in emergency and essential service workers.
Pretty much 80 per cent of the residential loans that I write are for police officers.
And that can range from first home buyers to refinancing. I’ve got a couple of clients at the moment who have sold their houses to upsize as well. It’s a mixture of everything.
Q. What was the first loan you settled?
It was a police officer who was a first-home buyer. We started talking in October 2024. I had only gotten accredited in September 2024 and then started setting up, being a new broker and getting pre-approval but their loan didn’t settle until June last year.
So it was really interesting spending so many months talking to one client to then get to settlement and then to still wait to get paid. It was a really good learning opportunity.
They were a lovely couple for my first introduction into broking!
Q. You recently diversified into commercial finance. Why?
My parents are business owners, and I have a small business on the side for my homewares.
Also going through Covid was so disheartening for me, walking down to my local strip of shops and so many of them having to close up shop because they couldn't stay open. Even to this day, there are heaps of retailers that have had to go out of business.
I just want to support them.
Q. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
If you become a broker you’ve got to have the financial support to get you through the first two years.
A lot of people think that the money is just going to start rolling in and the referrals are going to be every week. There are always periods of when you're talking to the clients and then you’re doing pre-approvals and then you have to wait for settlement and then you have to wait until you get paid by the aggregator.
So, you have to have your finances there to support you.
Tune in to hear more!
You can hear more about what it takes to run a powerhouse operation specialising in first home buyers and shared equity schemes in the podcast episode, New Broker – How this new broker carved out her niche, here:
Click here to listen on your device
Did you like this episode? Show your support by rating us or leaving a review and by following The Adviser on social media: Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and LinkedIn.
If you have any questions about what you heard today, or any topics of interest you have in mind for future episodes, email
Make sure you’re subscribed to The Adviser’s bulletin to ensure you never miss a beat and never miss a podcast episode by subscribing to us now on your preferred podcast provider!
Related links:
Like this video? Subscribe to The Adviser on YouTube:
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?
Make The Adviser a preferred news source on Google.
Click here to add The Adviser as a preferred news source.
