Good Evening Peter Alistair & Rolf
Please do not read wrongly into my below comments... not intended to be offensive to anyone - just throw a few questions out there. I’m quite sure I’m going to get a bit of a blast in part.
Perhaps your comments are in part true... I recall years ago the best you could hope for would be what - 0.25 - 0.50 off variable (if anything), then its now gone to 0.7 and many lenders are starting to scratch to the 0.80%, with my prior reference achieving even more highly.
Also I agree with your and Rolf's points, and to rephrase, the client which I was alluding to is in an extremely strong position and banks were falling all over themselves to acquire his business, which is another strand in this altogether - the value of the client - or the percieved value/potential in many cases which helped us negotiate that much more.
If I may be so bold as to put this query out there, with the continual increasing in competition for clients in the market, how many of the brokers on the panel have reviewed their client bases to achieve the same or better - whether it be with the same current lender or otherwise?
As most would be aware, you can walk in and go to most banks nowadays or find a broker and get 0.70% off variable if you are over $250k no problem and in many cases even with less... with or without some sort of pro-package. Fixed's are another story altogether obviously, and I realise you have to place a client to where they are at - at the time.
Of all of the postings I have skimmed through (albeit early days and I dont log on to this site every day as business doesnt permit the ability to sit online every day so this is more of a 'fun' thing) I havent found one person in the fourm who has achieved over 0.90% off variable and line of credit with a lender and is telling all of the others - or saying - call this guy at westpac or this broker here as he'll get you this ridiculously low rate... and for that matter a broker coming up with the same - you'd think they would be shouting it out to gain the business (as they are so cost effective).
So in part my simple question is why? Why does it occur and why is it better for a client to pay 0.20% more or 0.45% more than they need to off normal variable or loc? Even low docs are competitive now and in many cases the same rate would apply to a low doc that it would a normal client.
Where I am thinking here to hope to clarify...
In addition to placing the finance and getting that through, a brokers job to the layman in part - is to get the best available deal for their clients... so is there a double standard?
Say for example is it that if a client refinances a broker introduced loan from a bank in X amount of time, then in many cases, the broker is subject to clawbacks so... is the broker somewhat reluctanct to switch his clients, knowing that there are better offers out there now than what there were a year or two years ago, but also knowing he might have clawbacks and does a cost/benefit analysis before they head down this road.
Again, I'm not saying the brokers here do this as from what I have seen on the panel most are highly rated so I would not expect this to be the case.
Ideally - the client doesnt care about the brokers clawbacks at the end of the day (nor why should they) as much as the broker does if it comes down to them saving more money on a better offer - notion being it is better in their pocket, and if they are paying a higher rate then they figure the broker (or bank for that matter) isnt doing his job when this is pointed out to them that they could achieve the same with another bank at a better rate.
I see comments on the forum that a bank cant afford to do this widescale, perhaps this is true enough... but yet for the 'right client'... this isn’t the case.
Must go, have a plane to catch.
Cheerio
Saint.