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The Adviser talks to Bluestone Mortgage's national head of sales, Royden D'Vaz, to discuss the opportunities in specialist lending
Why choose Bluestone?
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Since 2000, Bluestone has developed a reputation as a high-quality, innovative specialist lender delivering flexible loan products to many satisfied customers.
Bluestone’s experienced team of loan assessors bring a unique approach to lending. Rather than looking for problems, they look for ways to say ‘yes’ to the deals other lenders say ‘no’ to. Each borrower’s unique circumstances are considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure the best solution possible is provided.
What’s new at Bluestone?
Bluestone Mortgages recently introduced a new product aimed at brokers who service the self-employed and SME markets. Business Easy will help brokers provide lending solutions for their clients who run small businesses, even if they have only been in business for a short time, eg. for as little as three months.
What’s important to us?
You are! According to Royden D’Vaz, Bluestone’s national head of sales, Business Easy will help fill a void in the specialist lending market. It was feedback from you via our BDMs which highlighted that finance options for self-employed and SME startups was extremely difficult for brokers to source, so we set about doing something about it. And we will continue to listen to you as we look to expand our product range further.
A significant opportunity
Specialist loans are integral to the Australian mortgage market. Industry experts place the current value of Australia’s specialist loan sector at over $5 billion per year – with some suggesting it could be as high as $10 billion. With further growth expected, this represents a significant opportunity for brokers to realise the potential of broadening their customer base, increasing their referral sources and driving revenue growth via diversification.
Diversify and grow
In addition to helping clients who would otherwise find themselves without a solution, specialist solutions can help brokers create stickier clients. It could even be viewed like an annuity type of income where you can put your customer into a specialist loan, and then rewrite them in 18 months to two years after
their credit has improved. It should definitely be viewed as a two-fold revenue stream.
Tips to make it happen
- Ensure you provide your clients with options before recommending a solution.
- Manage your clients’ expectations and provide them with a plan so they thoroughly understand what is happening and what the next steps are.
- Don’t prejudge the client or pre-empt any responses and always allow them to make any decisions for themselves.
Specialist borrowers
Specialist borrowers come from all walks of life and represent a broad cross-section of the community. This diversity applies to personal situation, employment type, length of time in the country, age and business type. Some examples include: recent arrivals to the country, entrepreneurs in the early stages of starting a business, recent divorcees funding the division of their assets, successful business people raising working capital to expand their current ventures, people who are consolidating credit cards/store cards to reduce their monthly repayments, property investors raising funds to purchase another property, borrowers with credit problems looking to put them in their past and contractors working on a variety of short-term projects. The majority of these scenarios are used by many lenders as reasons to say ‘no’ but it is these very scenarios that Bluestone and other specialist lenders have built their businesses upon. So next time you come across a one of these customers you can be assured that there are solutions available.
