Tailored residential property loans, for the home you’re actually buying.

Start with what you’re doing, not with a rate

Most people come to us with a rate in mind. That’s a reasonable place to start a conversation and a poor place to make a decision, because the rate you can access depends on things that have nothing to do with advertising — how you earn your income, how long you’ve earned it that way, what the property is, how you’ll hold it, and how much of it you’re funding.

Two people with the same income can get very different answers from the same lender. A salaried buyer with a long employment history is assessed differently to someone self-employed for eighteen months. A standard house in a capital city is treated differently to a small apartment, a rural block or something you’re building. None of that shows up in a headline number.

So we start at the other end. We work out what you’re actually trying to do, then find the lenders whose policy accommodates it, and only then talk about pricing among the options that are genuinely open to you. It’s a duller conversation and it wastes a lot less of your time.

We’re a broker, not a lender

The Finance Team is a trading name of Online Showroom Pty Ltd, holding Australian Credit Licence 551493. We don’t lend our own money and we don’t make the approval decision — the lender does. What we do is sit on your side of the table: understand your position, compare what’s available across our panel, explain the trade-offs in plain terms, and then do the paperwork and the chasing.

That last part matters more than people expect. A property application has a lot of moving pieces — payslips, statements, contracts, valuations, insurance, conveyancing dates — and most of the stress in the process comes from those pieces arriving late or in the wrong form. Handling that is a large part of the job.

We’re also obliged to assess whether a loan is not unsuitable for you before we recommend it, and you can ask us for a copy of that assessment. Our Credit Guide sets out how we’re paid, including commission a lender may pay us if your loan settles, and what to do if you’re unhappy with us. It’s worth ten minutes.

The best time to call is earlier than you think

People usually contact a broker once they’ve found a property. By then the timeline is set by someone else, and if there’s anything unusual in your situation you’re solving it under pressure. A conversation before you start looking costs you nothing and tells you what’s realistic — which changes where you look and what you offer.

It’s also worth a call if nothing has changed except time. Loans drift. A structure that suited you when you took it out may not suit you three years and one career change later, and the only way to know is to look at it.

What we’ll ask for

Nothing exotic, but there is a list, and having it ready shortens everything:

• Identification, and confirmation of who is on the application.
• Evidence of your income — payslips for employees, or returns and financials if you’re self-employed.
• Recent statements for your everyday accounts, credit cards and any existing loans.
• Details of the property, or the plans and building contract if you’re building.
• What you’re putting in, and where it came from.

If part of that list is awkward — a gap in employment, a short trading history, a past credit issue — say so at the start rather than hoping it won’t come up. Lenders differ enormously in how they treat these things, and knowing early is what lets us send your application somewhere it has a fair hearing instead of somewhere it doesn’t.