Your Money Doesn't Need to Be Hard

Welcome to Finance, But Neat

Most people don't have a money problem. They have a clarity problem.

In the first proper episode of Finance, But Neat, Alex sits down with co-host Bindi Holland for a wide-ranging conversation about what "neat finance" actually means — and why so many Australians feel stuck not because the numbers don't work, but because no one's ever shown them where they actually stand.

Bindi spent 16 years at CommBank — eight in branch, the rest in lending and lending leadership, before joining Funded Finance. Alex came in from the other side: commercial real estate, banking and then broking. Between them, they've seen every version of the same problem: clients with more equity, more income, and more options than they realise, frozen because the conversation around money has been made unnecessarily complicated.

In this episode:

• The real difference between bank lending and broking — and why Alex says he didn't know what he didn't know until he left CommBank
• Why "gatekeep vs gateway" is the question that defines a good broker
• The Two Pillars philosophy: equity (or cash) in, and serviceability the bank is comfortable with — and why almost everything else is noise
• Clarity over complexity — and why a tidy cash-flow set-up often unlocks the next move better than any clever strategy
• Long-term over short-term — the trap of stacking interest-only properties for cashflow and the real cost over 30 years
• Calm over chaos — what it looks like when your finance professional is the duck paddling, so you don't have to be
• The "broker as map" framing: not pushing you toward a destination, just showing you your current location and what's actually possible
• Negotiating tactics for first home buyers who can't afford a buyer's agent (including the odd-number trick)

If you've been sitting on equity, dodging the conversation, or walking away from BBQ chats thinking I should probably know more about this — start here.

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Funded Finance 📸 Instagram → @funded.finance

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Finance, But Neat is hosted by Alex Watson, mortgage broker and director of Funded Finance. Information shared is general in nature only and does not constitute financial, tax, or investment advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

G'day everyone, Alex here, and welcome to our new podcast, Finance but Neat, where while we acknowledge you need some complexity and it is often the enemy for most financial uh models, the reality is you kind of need it sometimes, and we want to make things just not simple, not easy, but just neat. So you understand them and you know what's going on when you're making these heavy, heavy decisions around your finances. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

You had a customer just yesterday, I think, um, that had a really complicated scenario, uh, went to a different broker. Things were really overcomplicated. Um, how'd you make it neat for them?

SPEAKER_05 0:36

Yeah, the so the previous broker last year did some transactions for them. Um, love privacy laws. Uh to kind of oversimplify it, I was looking at their portfolio, their loans, the amount of loans they had, the direction of the loans, the purposes, and I didn't understand what was going on. And the clients couldn't understand it. They didn't have, you know, per investment property, they had three, four investment properties. They didn't have a loan, one account per investment. They weren't tracking cash. And it was all just really, really messy. And so what we're doing is we're we had to look at all the equity, we can get it all cleaned up, the equity's in a great position, so we don't need all these random cash outs and everything like that, and we're bringing it all together. And we can't always do that, but we can at least explain it. Start to let them know where their money's going. You can have two accounts and the direct debit's the cash flow all in one account. Like it's just bringing it all together and going, hey, this complexity of cash flow is actually a giant leaky bucket on your finances. Let's just get that going. Get that fixed first, and then we know what that next transaction is, that next equity, that next investment property, that next dream home. That is all the platform of neatness that allows that.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, I think with um tidying up the logistics of how they lend in this scenario, we'll probably even expand them to be more ready to take another step on something in the future as well, right? Because they understand that things can move simply.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

And it allows them to maybe dream bigger.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

Yeah, if you're feeling constrained where you're at, and like we we do living expenses analysis, right? Like it's not a grilling, it's an understanding of where people's money is. And when I had a look at it, it was like, I think this person's doing some gig work because they actually don't know where their money's going. And then when you look at like it wasn't even basic recreation spending, it was other discretionary, it was insanely high. And it was like, I actually think everyone's panicking and looking for a quick spending dopamine hit like guilty. Uh, because you don't know where your money's at. You don't know why you're doing things, and suddenly you're, you know, having to do hustles and side hustles and to afford everything. Why would you ever invest and create more wealth with another property when you're stuck in that position?

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

Like, I mean, we both know what it's like to have single income households, right? It's, you know, it's not fun. So uh, but I yeah, let's do a little bit of an intro into ourselves. Uh so I think Bindi firstly, I you've been in broking for almost a year now with funded finance. Uh how long were you at Combank? 16 years. 16 years. Uh, I find it hilarious that we've got so many 35-year-olds in our business, by the way. Um like we're all, yeah, with decades of experience. Um what I think has been uh like you've had a long banking career of 16 years, uh still in finance. What has kind of been the key differences you've noticed?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, so my I guess my background in Combank was I spent eight years in branch or different branches, and I sort of understand that real transactional side. Yeah. The rest of that time was in lending, whether it was actually lending myself, whether it was leadership of lending. Um and so probably it's funny, coming into your world here for the last almost year, um, it's been, I've been really reflective, like what I would have done different as a leader, what I would have taught people to care about more in order to be more successful in their roles. But you just you don't have that lens um, you know, without sort of stepping out. So some of the big differences obviously um are you really are pricing, like if if a customer's like main goal is price, you really are in the best position to be able to give them the kind of loan that they want with the the rate that that is best for them if if that's what their goal is. Uh similarly, if their goal is I just need to get into the market or I just need to purchase this property for whatever reason, maybe it's not about rate, but maybe it's about a normal uh, you know, uh one of the big banks may not have an appetite to lend for that, but you'll find if they if they want to just get into the market, you'll find someone as a lender that would be happy to support them.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Um, those are two really big differences. Obviously, when you're you're siloed in one bank, you you're working with one appetite, you're working with one rate book, like you don't have the the space to actually present a real comparative offer to them.

SPEAKER_05 5:30

I just on that, I remember this would have been 2018, 2019. I'd been a broker for I sorry, a a mobile banker for maybe six months. Um I had gotten this really cool, like I was getting really cool referrals from a real estate agency, and one of them was like a doctor. And I sat down, like I was legitimately an idiot, and he's like, I ANZ will say we can do 95% loans on medico LMI waivers. I was like, I work for the Commonwealth Bank. If I can't do a deal, no one can. Yeah. And it was kind of this cockiness of like, hey, I can do anything. I I couldn't. I was like, and I was completely wrong. ANZ, do it all day, every day. I've got a couple solutions like that now that will do 95% loans for medical waivers, even for physios. Um, got to use that later. Thank you, Anna. Uh but it's like it's just you don't know what you don't know when you're in the bank land. And that's not a knock on bankers, but uh like some of the most incredible people I know are bankers. But just from my perspective, I didn't realize how much I didn't know until I left banking.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah. The other thing um I would add is, and I don't know like necessarily that this is uh like comprehensive across all brokerage firms. I imagine that there's a lot of big firms out there that are very, you know, find it hard to pivot, find it hard to move and be agile. But one of the things that I notice in your business is that you can be as agile as what you want. You can and like the way that you're setting up your team to to really holistically look after your customers and deliberately look after them. Um, that's a huge difference. Like I think uh as I I know as a branch uh or sorry, as a you know, a bank lender, we focus so much on what is the customer's need right now? How do we do everything that we can to give them a good price and get them alone?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

But we didn't do a great job of looking after them after that. And I think you've structured your team really well in order to not only look after them in the first instance, but help them to be progressing with their goals as they go down the track.

SPEAKER_05 7:45

Yeah, and I I think it's a very complex thing to solve in bank land. Like it is when you've got like I am the shareholder of funded finance, right? And so um I I think it is a very complex thing for banks uh to solve. I've been in a meeting where a major bank CEO said it's a very brave CEO who starts repricing their back book. Um I asked, yeah, like, and I was like, uh correct. You've got shareholders, you've got, you've got to predict what your revenue is gonna be over the next three months, quarter as a bank. Otherwise, you're in deep trouble. And yeah, they're playing with the rules that they've been given, right? And if they start doing that, it's they're in a little bit of trouble.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:30

Um and that's not to knock banks, it's just to give the the situation they're coming from. And part of the key to unlocking that long term, like we want to walk through life with our clients, it's really, really clear on that. And I think part of unlocking that was having you come into the team to actually like you told me the other day you're uh this may be creepy a little bit, but you're keeping an eye on when kids' sport is so you know when we can catch up with them in six months' time.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Your customers' kids' sports. Yeah, not general kids' sport. Yeah, um yeah, no, I think it's like uh just their life in general. Like, if I can get to know a little bit about what your customers' life is like, I can I can help meet their expectations, make things easy for them to get in front of you because it's like I mean, the whole segment of what you do, right, is life admin, which is just the hardest thing for anyone to get done, which is great that they have someone like yourself to sit down and do with them. But um, it is one of those things that you will cancel it or put it off if someone doesn't make it easy for you. So yes, I I'd you know try to take an interest in their lives, see how we can work and make that easier so that I can get them in front of your expertise.

SPEAKER_05 9:39

Yeah, yeah. I think the uh yeah, I I think the real the real value add is just like, hey, we've saved you a bit of money on your eight. And I I think that for me is kind of an expectation if there's an opportunity to save, we will, yeah, regardless of whatever the cost is to us, or we you know, we want to do that, but also just having a a conversation, and I I really like framing these well in terms of what are your goals? Because this is what's possible, but what are your goals first and then kind of pivoting off that?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah. Cool. Um, so what about you? I mean, you've been in finance uh similar to me 15, 16 years. You've been out on your own now for three. Um why why the podcast? Why is it important to you?

SPEAKER_05 10:31

Uh firstly, and I know she'll never watch this. Anna uh had when I told her, Anna's like, Oh, thank goodness you're finally going to do this. I've been talking about it for so long. The reality from my perspective is uh I just I'm very, very, very, very tired of uh finfluences and everyone throwing complexity at the world and like as though they've got these mystical tools to make it really secretive. And then even over the years, I've seen other finance professionals, you know, kind of uh almost trying to provide complex scenarios that just qualify them as an expert. And I'm like, it's just not that hard.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

Like it's just not. Finance is just there's two pillars that I'm trying to solve. And if I can solve those two things, we'll get you a home loan. Like it's it's that. And maybe we need to add some structures and some complexity around ownership. We had a situation the other day where we needed to buy a property in one person's name because the other person uh was like going through a bit of a shift in their career and stuff like that. We didn't even do any common debt reduction, but their situation just meant it wasn't quite optimal to do a loan in joint names. And we just went, hey, this is super easy. We'll just take you off the application and go. Like it's it's just not that hard.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

Um, and so I think from my perspective, I want to decrease the noise. I want to make sure that we're what we're giving to everyday Aussies is actually allowing them to breathe when it comes to money. When finance is there, it's like, oh, this isn't that, this isn't that stressful.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:13

Um, so yeah, my my goal around kind of like you've been banking finance 16 years. I uh was commercial real estate agent, got into banking uh 17th of October 2022, uh and have gone like through that whole journey of being senior home lender, which we did together almost 10 years ago in May. 6th of May, I think it found a photo the other day. Um I saw I saw my first professional banking photo, like my first, and I was like, why is my face so round?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

I bet you didn't see mine.

SPEAKER_05 12:53

Not ever seen mine. No, yeah. It was hard enough to get an updated profile for our website, let alone, yeah. Um yeah. I mean, you had blonde hair when I met you. Yeah, yeah. Uh I know I had a razor fade.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

We can safely win that all thing. Yeah, yeah. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:17

No, my my cheeks were way too round to justify a razor fade. It was, yeah, it was not a good idea. Um But yeah, I I just think that simplicity of finance with a career that we've had, you know, Laura, Mary even, yeah, uh, we're the only ones in this business that aren't accountants, aren't accountants.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yes, I did realize that actually.

SPEAKER_05 13:38

I was like, uh I think I've got the little I've got the most broken qualifications, let's just clarify. Yeah, I have got those, but yeah, like it's yeah, it's very, very much uh a team effort, and I just want to take everything that we see every single day executing with our clients and go, let's just relax for a second, because it's really not that hard.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

So for sure. Your finances, I mean, I feel like if you don't carve out time to think and talk about your finances, you're not gonna get towards goals or have goals. But you should have these dedicated times with your, you know, your dedicated team of professionals that are there to help you, but it shouldn't be your constant everyday thought. You should be able to then leave it, go about your living your life, and it's sort of like in the background, someone's taking care of things for you.

SPEAKER_05 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Which is, I think, where you really pull that together for your customers.

SPEAKER_05 14:37

Yeah, and the like I just I don't like the transactional nature of where finance is kind of been a little bit recently, and where I think their tension is um is you've got brokers who want to be high efficient. I just want to bring clients in and we will solve their finance problems. And you've got brokers who really want to be relationship driven. And there's some incredible broking firms that have solved this, right? I'm not saying that the tension I saw when I moved into broking was how do I meet this in the middle? Like commercial-wise, we need to do home loans. We need that's what we you know do.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:16

Uh, but at the same time, like I can't manage five, six hundred people by myself. So how do I empower a team? Um, and I think for me, like that is uh kind of the tension that we found really with banking a little bit. Like you were talking earlier about the the observations you'd made around just leading bankers.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:38

The key there was like quite often actually, I just oh no. So I don't know if you remember this, and he did not stay in that job for long. I'm always con, and this is one of the things I always say, it's not bank first broker, it's person first person. If you got the finance professional that you trust, yeah. And I remember someone who we learnt to lend with just within 55 seconds, qualify the client, realized that they didn't have enough cash, told them they didn't have enough cash, and said, Thank you, see you later, and hung up. And a boss stood up and said, That's not true.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

How are you today?

SPEAKER_05 16:21

Like, and it's uh you've kind of got this this tension between brokers uh who are you know trying to like get all this complication complexity, and then bankers who are just yes, no, it's a deal, no, you get to the ceiling, they say your borrowing is 400,000, whereas we've got a solution at 800 grand for an investment and your dreams are just crushed.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

And so I think just trying to to solve that, um, which kind of like I think just leads me on to what neat actually means.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:53

Um and for me, it's not like it's not throwing the baby out with a bath water, right? We do complexity. We have to. It's just what does it mean to get you clarity first on your position. Um I I think a broker, and I at least this is how I think of our firm everyone's always, where do we go first? Who do we talk to first? What do we do first? And I think we have tried to position ourselves in a way where we go, we are the current location on your map.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:26

We are we are right where you want to know where you stand, current location, let's go. And then you can kind of go, all right, well, here's this big plan that I've got. Um I had a live admin last year, actually, with a couple where they're like, we want to do XYZ and save XYZ by this date. And I was like, how many more jobs are you gonna get?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:49

Like honestly, yeah. Like if you want to do that and you want to triple both of your incomes and decrease your spendings, awesome. But let's get clear over where you're at now, what you're earning, and what's actually possible before we throw big visions out.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, but I think that's that's what sets, you know, a sort of a an experienced and a seasoned broker uh apart from whoever you were referencing day one on the phones that just sent that person away. Um but that that's what sets them apart, right? Is it's maybe what the customer's first thought is is not where they end up. Maybe, maybe they need to pivot, but they don't know what you know, what options are available to them, or and they need someone, you know, with some some expertise to say we could work towards that and it's gonna take you this many years. Or if your goal is to act faster, you could do this, which you know is slightly different, but it's a stepping stone towards what you want and it will get you there faster, or or whatever, or you can grow with the market and things like that.

SPEAKER_05 18:51

Yeah, the um, yeah, and look, I I think that kind of leads us to the next thing, right? In terms of long-term over short term, it's you can put a six-month plan in place, right? And uh like uh I I just if you're doing a six-month property transaction, unless you're doing a development or something like that, you're doing something that's going to increase the price, like it's always for me got to be the long term. Like it's got to be a 10 to 15 year thing. It's not about, oh my goodness, I've made this transaction now I'm completely overwhelmed. It's like, well, we should probably should have looked at your current location first, figured out what's going on before we made this move. And it's I've seen time and time again when we just slow down at the very beginning with what is your borrowing capacity, how much cash, how much equity do you have? Let's solve what you can do. And at the same time, just be really clear on where that location is. People looking going, oh my goodness, what I can actually achieve it in real time. Like I remember one client in real time from the day they touched base with us, by the time we did the submission application pre-approval to settle, like maybe it was a couple months, their living expenses and their financial situation was just on an insane trajectory because suddenly they had a reason to not spend or not waste their money. Like it's about how can we look at these long-term goals and give you an idea of what this is actually going to help you achieve? Yeah, what these loans are gonna look like. You know, should we go interest only or principal interest? Well, let's look at the long term. If you keep this interest only for 30 years, what's that gonna cost you versus if you go a little bit extra for P and I?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:31

Like it's those sorts of conversations instead of can I, and this is a big buyer's agent problem at the moment, I think, where they're selling people and going interest only, interest only, interest only for cash flow reasons and not looking at the long-term cost. So people stack up five properties and then not actually go, well, I could have done this with three.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:51

And made more money and paid less interest.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

So um, and that's kind of the third thing is just the calm over chaos. Uh, we're we're the duck paddling.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

And I like we're we're working furiously behind the scenes. There's there's people in our business right now who are working on our clients' goals that I've kind of pointed at, hey, we're running towards this, they're running, and we've just got to control the messaging. And I think you and I who talk to the clients probably more um, you know, pre and post settlement. We're just trying to keep this calm, right? Yeah. Keep it simple.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

As it should be. I mean, they're the customers. And I used to tell lenders this all the time when I was leading them. Like the customers should not feel that stress. Uh, they got enough of their own stresses going on. They're not doing this as their nine to five job. They're doing this on top of their nine to five job most of the time. So, so really they should they should be able to almost handball uh the deal over to you and you just tell them the minimum that they need to contribute to make it work.

SPEAKER_05 21:55

Yeah. Yeah, and like that uh That is a very um like that's a very key kind of principle in terms of what what tools can I pr like give you to help that next step. Because like I spoke to a first home buyer yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

Um and it was like, hey, you've got an option, you can kind of keep grinding and hustling, but this job that you've got over here has 40 to 50 grand income potential.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:27

Let's just send it over here. Yeah. And like if you do that, all this downhill stuff is just gonna take care of itself. And so I think clients will come to us with a lot of options and it's like, hey, let's distill it.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:41

Here's a strategy or whatever to go, this is your next step to make it really clear. Um, and that is that for me is just always going to be the like if I can't set someone up to have real clear practical tools on how to clean up over the next kind of six months, if they're not wanting to do an immediate transaction, I kind of feel like I've failed from that perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

You've been talking about this um quite a bit. And I think one of my observations, especially as a leader of lenders, is that a lot of the time, you know, they can they can almost gatekeep a solution. And I don't know that, you know, I don't know that they necessarily disqualify the client. Yeah, they're they're probably not even trying to or thinking about trying to get rid of the customer or anything like that. They're a lot of the time, I think what it is is there's a genuine fear in a lender that they've seen this go wrong in the past and they're worried it's gonna happen again, or they've seen um where something has been a roadblock previously and they get a little bit burned and guarded from it and they try and rule it out. And if they ever get a customer who has a hint of something like that going on, yeah, they will then try to not do a deal with them.

SPEAKER_05 23:53

I'm just it just struck me that I invest so much time into meetings without like I probably should do a little bit a little bit more of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

But yeah, it's yeah, like they they probably a little bit guarded. Yeah. Um, and I know you and I, um, and I say raised, I mean we were by our leader, raised as lenders to look for what can you do, not what can't you do. Um and I I mean like from watching you over the last year, that's certainly something that's stuck in your core values.

SPEAKER_05 24:22

Yeah. I I think one of the visions I had for this team was when we learned to lend. And like Callan, if you ever watch this, thank you. Um big thanks. Yeah. Uh you know where I am if you ever want to leave. Uh I think it was very much this really cool culture we had. And we could all work remotely, right? Yeah like we could. Um, and I could just sit in this office by myself. But I really wanted that culture of put the client on mute. Hey, I just need to solve this deal. Like two seconds, how do I solve it? Where's the brain's trust, right? Um, and I think that culture really set me up to go, do I need these five boxes? Do I need to tick these five, six boxes like your spending and an analyzer? And it's uh you almost get clients' victim blaming when things go wrong. You hear bad stories with other lenders and brokers and whatever. And I'm it's always a red flag to me when someone's blaming themselves for a transaction not being executed well. And what I start to realize is I I just the two pillars philosophy we've got now in like our our whole strategy for investors is really based around this. What is your equity position or cash position? What can you put into this transaction to make that happen? And then what can we show the bank as evidence to service this loan? Not afford it because everyone can afford more than what banks say generally, but how can you service this loan? Yeah. Um, and how can you show serviceability in a way that the bank is comfortable with to then give you more finance, leverage, buy investment, buy your dream home, create wealth, get equity, leverage that offer. Like, what does that look like? This big giant concept of trust and all that kind of jazz. It's all there. It will happen to the right people in the right time, but it's basic core. We've got a CEO of a company at the moment where I'm like, you got equity, you got income, sweet. And she's like, what about this? And I was like, I I don't care. Like I and I didn't use those words, but I actually don't care.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:31

Because I'm like, it's got like that's for me to worry about and comment around. If I need to get the context of something, I will ask once I've gone through it.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

It's almost like your job is to neaten up not just things for the customer, but for the banks as well. Like you're kind of like neatening up things on both ends because you would be very naive and green to think that you could build a business around people who already are neat in their finances. Like there's going to be people that have had things that need explaining. Um, and if you try and rule them all out to not do business with them at the start, you're going to realize very quickly that everyone's got a bit of a messy background. And it's about understanding the context behind why did that happen and is it explainable? Yeah. And will a bank understand that part of someone's life? And or how can you make them understand? Um, which I think, you know, you're kind of doing that neat on both sides, really.

SPEAKER_05 27:23

Yeah. Yeah. It's let's look, you screw it. Uh you talk to b you talk to BDMs all the time, and they're like, give us what we ask for. Don't that's what like just give us what we asked for. And it's like we've got a loan uh that went on conditional last night, eight o'clock last night. I was texting the clients going, it went on conditional, it's a hundred grand loan, it's not that big of a deal. They were kind of stitched up a little bit uh 18 months ago, you know, trying to complete something, and they need to get this equity out of, you know, another property and all this kind of stuff. And I looked at it and they're like, we'll go to like it's just a hundred grand, we'll go like I think I'm making 650 bucks plus GST. Like it's not much on it. But I looked at the situation and I looked at them and then I looked at the bank they were with, and I was like, this is gonna go belly up if I don't do this application. Like I just don't know. And it's not bank versus broker, person to person. I don't know who they're gonna end up with and how this deal is going to be presented and what what reasons we're gonna give for this to be approved and what mitigants for this situation are gonna be used. And I know these clients, you know, uh reasonably well, and I I get the context they're going, and I can actually make it explained their situation to the bank in a way that everyone's happy.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 28:50

Without lying, without compromising our integrity or values, like it's actually, you know, half of our our job, right? To do that.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:01

Um but yeah, for them it was just uh literally a matter in time of we've got we've got your equity, we've got your borrowing capacity, it all works. We've just got this little kind of situation that you're going through at the moment that we just need to explain properly. And if they had a walked into a guy who's been lending for three weeks, you know, who knows? Yeah, even uh it really, really opened my eyes. Uh we've got clients who did an incredible home like their dream homes being purchased. Uh love it. Like I it's it was one of the harder home loan applications we've gotten improved. Uh and it was just a couple months in the making, walking through, and I remember at the time when I was prepping this application to for submission, we're actually uh advertising for Laura's role. And so what I was doing is I was throwing this scenario at everyone to kind of go, hey, this is a situation to see what they would do. Like I was, hey, we've got XYZ and XYZ and they're doing da-da-da-da. How would you solve this? What would you approach? And I had a couple of newer brokers and one really fresh or green bank lender who applied for the job. And I was like, I'll just see. I'll just see if these guys are you know real credit analysts or just trying to become brokers eventually. Like I needed Laura being Laura.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:28

And the like unanimously, and I the banker was kind of like the context of the bank he works with, I was like, I get why you're saying this, but they all, they all unanimously, apart from one, uh, said it can't be done. Just flat out couldn't be done. And I was like, explain to me why. And they didn't understand how to mitigate complex home loan applications. They hadn't learnt to do what they do. They'll just, well, bank policy says two years. And I was like, I some he said, well, bank policy, you need two years self-employed. I was like, Ainzed's one, 18 months GSC registration.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

What are you on about?

SPEAKER_05 31:09

Like, I was I was getting a bit annoyed at him. And so I think not to toot our own horn, we've done enough of that. There are legitimate people that you can deal with in broking industry that will make it neat, will make it clear, will make you understand. And I don't think we quite often grill those experts that we're gonna deal with. Again, it's not bank versus broker. You and I know I can I've I spoke to one yesterday, uh, a banker yesterday, who he's 10 times the finance professional I will ever be. Uh he just doesn't have more than one option.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:42

Like I'm yeah, he gets paid way too well uh to ever come into broking. So it's like that's where he's at.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

But it's so funny. I remember um I remember when we started out being lenders and we would have a customer whose situation was just far beyond whatever the bank's appetite was. Like there was no way that we were going to do the deal. And we were taught to send them to a broker. Um, if we couldn't do it, if we genuinely couldn't help them, there is someone that you can go to out there that that has a scope of lending far broader than what we know about. They will be able to sort you out in a pinch. And it's funny to be on that side of the fence now to see that you're actually, you know, you are working with customers who, you know, some of them are very affluent, very vanilla, very easy to slide through. But some of them there's like a real project of work to make sure that they're getting into their dream home or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 32:40

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think anytime you can get someone who's been self-employed for six months into a into a house, yeah, and we've done it twice in the last nine months.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:52

I freaking love being a broker.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

How cool is that? How cool is that?

SPEAKER_05 32:56

Like, I pinch myself. I'm like, but again, the irony is both those situations were things that I learned to do at Combank.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:05

And I bet you if I walked into our local branch, the banker wouldn't be there knowing how to do that and knowing that he could probably and I risk appetite changes over time. Like one of the things I say is your risk bank's risk appetite is a marketing plan. So they're going to create a risk policy based on the business that they want to market and bring in. And so they will advertise we will do risky self-employed to brokers to get that business in or to the market to get that business in. And so you've got to understand that it's not that your bank doesn't want your business, it's that they're trying to attract these types of clients, they're balancing their risk capital. Yeah. And so you might have a bank that goes, hey, we will do risky, but we're going to charge it for it. Like there's all that sort of stuff. I think the reality, and this may have changed with with the Combank over the years, we were doing, like, I had a tradee who had been self-employed for one year when we did 12 months self-employed financial, uh, two years self-employed financial. Like that was the policy back then. You did two years self-employed. And I was like, this guy's been a uh P A Y G plasterer for 10 years. Yeah. And he's been self-employed. I've got his old tax returns, I've got his current tax returns.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:18

He's on the same amount of money. You know, I mitigated it, I explained to it, and the credit officer went, Yeah, sweet. And I think that's changed slightly with Combank nowadays. Like, I don't know, as he I haven't done one of those recently. But another big four bank has been literally these two clients in the last months that I'm thinking of. They've both been professionals or tra one trade, one professional, backed by a partner that's, you know, doing pretty well. And they've both been employed self-employed for six months.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:49

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:51

So, you know, I there's always a solution out there. And the fun ones for me is when we get a solution that I have to convince my BDM to let me.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

I hear it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:05

No, yeah. As long as don't don't overhear the assessment. There's a reason why Laura gets my assess credit assessing phone calls now. I just, uh yeah. It's very fun. But yeah, look, uh, to bring it all back, I I don't think we're we're not here to hype suburbs. We're not going to push finance bros with kitschy little things. I've got a wife and two kids. You've got similar, but a husband, two daughters. Where we're both homeowners. Uh, we both want more out of what we're trying to do in life than just uh, you know, pay off our house and move on into the sunset. And so I think we're just being really clear. I the amount of times you give me a story from a barbecue, like I'm determined to make this that a segment that we go to constantly.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:55

Because you you seem to go to more barbecues than I do. I think I'm probably you probably listen.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Yeah, yeah. Maybe I just maybe I absorb more than you do.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

Yeah. Uh yeah. Uh but no, look, this is, I think this is second nature to us. Like we we had a strategy meeting. I hope the clients never listened to this, where we were we were waiting for an updated comparison to come with an updated pricing the other day. And I just spent the first 10 minutes talking about what we live and breathe until the team could get it to me. Like it was just waiting for something, and it comes so natural that this is what we live and breathe every day. Yeah. And so we're excited to talk about it, not add any hype. Cash flow, property, be really clear, even some negotiating clarity around the negotiating on property. That's one of my favorite things to do to help people negotiate on property. It's just like it's just not that hard.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:49

And it's made to be it's not that hard for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Because you think about this kind of stuff constantly. But for for your customers, I mean, I'm I'm sure that whatever support you can offer them like is invaluable to them.

SPEAKER_05 37:04

Yeah, I I think also the truth. Yeah. Um, I don't see many investors succeeding without a buyers agent at the moment. And we are gonna bring in some incredible buyers agents.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:15

Uh like I've I've got some guys uh that just are weapons at what they do and realists at the same time. Like they they help with cash flow, they are very realistic. And so I think you know, buyers agents kind of investors, very, very important. The other flip side to that is what do we do like when you're a first home buyer and you can't afford a buyer's agent? What do we do?

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:41

And so giving someone the tools to negotiate.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

It's yeah, well, it's a skill they're gonna need to have because you see there's in my um street at the moment, or my the two streets that I sort of want back onto and one that is my street, I think there's like three houses for sale at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

In my block, perhaps?

SPEAKER_01 38:01

We have I don't know if it's it's a complex. Like, I don't know if you call it a block. You can call it a block if you're possible better.

SPEAKER_05 38:08

Yeah, I feel like we need to bring like the block has been stolen from the block.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

On my block, there is three houses for sale because one person sold recently and um they got double what they paid for it, and that's caused a flurry of people saying, should we at least have a look? And now there's three houses for sale. But my point is every Saturday morning, my block is filled with people. There are thousands of them walking around at the moment, going to all of the different open homes, making offers, that kind of stuff. And it is going, it's the competition is real out there at the moment to buy the house. Um, even at these high prices, you gotta know what you're doing a little bit more than an average person to be able to be successful.

SPEAKER_05 38:55

Wow, that's yeah. I I just I remember 21 to 23. Uh, like, and this this is not a new problem. I think what we're finding at the moment is is very highly publicized what is happening with the first home buyers guarantee. Prices have tracked from 700 to a million, like it's just increased as soon as that went up. It's clearly indication there, but I mean, like supply and demand is always an issue. It's just the you know, yeah, people can compete against each other, and there's obviously demand, so the market and capitalism is winning. It I don't think it's a the government has influenced it, but it's not the government making that decision, right? Around what properties are actually worth. What I think happened, like when I bought my home in 2019, it I rocked up to the first open home Thursday. Shout out Dan DeSilva, uh, he was selling that, and there was like a couple kind of hugging and praying and almost crying. And I was like, how do how many open homes have you been to? Like, how long have you been to this car? I ironically, I think they ended up buying it, but it's this observation that I kind of took away of like, I need to help people negotiate better because what they did, I was the third highest offer on that property. They bought it for$588. I offered$520.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:22

That was so far above where they needed to be. And I started observing, like, I was a uh mobile banker at uh still at Combank then. And I started observing that my clients who I who weren't engaged with me and negotiating, like, you know, me helping, they they kind of went, I need this pre-approval for seven, like for 500 grand back then or 700,000. Yeah. And they didn't kind of understand they wanted to buy for seven, maybe they need to negotiate to 705 or and stuff like that, right? And so what I started to look at was these people who were like, I get a pre-approval for the X amount, that's what I spend, and I go away and negotiate. We're just offering that, offering that, offering that, would come back after six months, we renew the pre-approval by then and go, what is the maximum I can do? We'd ratchet it back up and then throw that whole budget at the next property.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:11

And it's like, I was like, okay, there's a smarter way to do this, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Like let's let's go.

SPEAKER_05 41:16

What do you want to spend? Let's get a smart buffer in that's not going to break your bank, but gives you flexibility to negotiate. And when you walk up to a property, what do I think the max I want to spend? And then just hug that a little bit closer than you do. And it's just like I I looked, took that, went, oh my goodness, I need to help. I need to figure out how to negotiate. And I like multiple offices in Queensland's a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:40

Perth. Uh, you know, clients who are settling today on their property. They went from like what was it? What it increased in negotiating by 200 grand. And it was just back force, back force, back force. New South Wales, you can get gazumped. Victoria, like it's a negotiating process. So I really like best and final in Queensland because you can actually negotiate and be tactical around your final offer.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:05

And so there's a lot going on there that let's just make it neat. Let's make it calm. Here are your ideal offer conditions, and here's some tips to help you nail it.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Like it's just Yeah, and like, you know, a 10-minute pep talk from you before they go to an open home the next day or something like that, around don't be scared to negotiate. And here's some practical ways of doing it. I'm gonna get so many calls a Friday. No, but it could be the difference between them getting a house a lot or saving, you know, what would have been if they went in too high, what would have been their first five years of repayments? They could have saved that originally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:40

The first homebuyer I spoke to yesterday. Um, his brother, I helped him buy his first home a couple years ago and went in and I just said, Hey, do something a little bit silly. It sounds dumb, sounds really transparent. Kind of get a little bit closer to that upper limit and throw an odd number on the end.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:57

Random odd number. Just like it might not work, just do it. And they went and accepted it straight away. And they're like, Oh, we just the agent literally said, Oh, I just saw you're at the probably at the top of your limit.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:10

And we had no other offers, so we just like we had to accept it. Because I was willing to add another 30 to that.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:15

Like, so it's, you know, little things like that just seems so stupid. You know. Uh, and don't ask ChatGPT what your offer should be because it will, it will, you'll go, hey, put an odd number on and it'll just put a one. Yeah. It'll be double oh one. Just don't just call me and I'll go 573.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

First time I've ever heard you talk bad about AI. Are you okay?

SPEAKER_05 43:37

It's a let's just say I can talk to AI like I can't employees. No, you're wrong. Oh goodness. But look, there is so much more we could go into. We could literally do this like all day. And that is what we're gonna keep doing. And for us, like I know if we can keep adding clarity, it will. Compound and clarity compounds constantly.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:03

And when you're stressed, everything's muddled. Like you can't grow in that stress place. You can go through stress, but you need clear, you need that clearness of why you're doing what you're doing. And so if we want to get that clarity back into people's lives, homeowners, we want to reach out, make sure that looks good, simplify things so people understand, and just provide a platform for some of the best experts that we've ever met in our careers to come and talk and just share with what we're doing. So yeah. Thank you guys for joining. This is Bindy. Bindy.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

That's all I was supposed to say.

SPEAKER_05 44:43

Uh goodness. I'm Alex Watson and welcome to Finance Button.