Specialist lending event a hit with mortgage advisers

"It was great to be able to show mortgage advisers how we can assist their residential lending clients," says manager

Specialist lending event a hit with mortgage advisers

Wellington’s specialist lending event kicked off last week, with over 60 mortgage advisers attending to ‘look outside the square’ and hear from nine specialist lenders about their offerings in the mortgage space.

The event’s hosts included Avanti, Bluestone, First Mortgage Trust, Heartland, Liberty, NZCU Baywide, RESIMAC, Southern Cross Partners, and Spotcap. It followed a similar event hosted in Auckland this August, which saw five non-bank lenders present to over 120 mortgage advisers.

With advisers increasingly dealing with rejection from mainstream banks, they saw the event as a great opportunity to get to grips with a rapidly growing specialist lending sector in New Zealand.

“In our business we’re probably dealing with 95% the ‘main thing,’ but there are a lot of applications that don’t fit their criteria, especially in the changing environment we’re operating in now,” said Bernie Upton, broker at The Home Loan Shop. “It was good for us to see how the specialist lenders collaborate with each other, and allow us to collaborate with them to get efficient outcomes for customers.”

“Most people don’t know enough about specialist lending,” NIULIFE Home Loans founder Jon Masaga added. “Nowadays I have noticed that customers are a lot more open to specialist lenders; so long as we explain why these options work for them, customers are more than happy to consider it. It was valuable having the lenders there and being able to ask questions about the types of deals they can and can’t do.”

Sandra Algar at Mortgage Link Hutt Valley said the event was ‘very well-run’ and that it is increasingly important for mortgage advisers to be well informed about specialist lending – especially since it could mean the difference between some clients getting the lending they need, or not.

Spotcap direct sales manager Sam Coleman also commented on the event’s success, saying it was an opportunity for advisers to get answers to questions directly from specialist lenders.

“As a business lender, it was great to be able to show mortgage advisers how we can assist their residential lending clients who might also be business owners,” he stated. “Breaking into smaller groups meant we could focus our attention on eight to ten advisers at a time, and provided a forum for them to ask questions of importance to them and their clients.”

The next specialist lending event is tentatively planned for March 2019.

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