“I was very suspicious of and cautious about home loan brokers due to the recent bad experience.

 

“A high level of credibility for the lending industry and especially your company.”

 

Dear David, I was very suspicious of and cautious about home loan brokers due to the recent bad experience.

I am writing to you as head of the Mortgage Australia Group to inform you about the unbelievably high level of service and professionalism provided by one of your New South Wales agents. In recent weeks my wife and I have had the pleasure of dealing with this agent to arrange the refinancing of our home loan.

The agent in question is Mr Paul Tuddenham who is based in Mittagong and who looks after our area, which is the Wollongong/Illawarra Region of NSW. During February/March I made several on line enquiries about home refinancing through several web sites, including Mortgage Australia. Paul responded to my enquiry via email and gently offered his services.

In making my enquiries I fully disclosed that there were some blemishes on my credit file that were the result of some financial problems that had occurred over 6 years ago and since that time my credit record was clear if not very good. I was also quite specific and fussy up front about what type of home loan features I wanted.

Never have I met someone who has worked so hard and bent over backwards so many times in order to achieve an outcome for a client. Only two brokers responded to my enquiries, one of whom was Paul. Initially, I declined Paul because another broker had responded first and had done some work on our behalf so I felt obligated to this other broker at the time. After some further contact, this other broker advised that no legitimate lender would deal with us because of my credit blemishes. I turned to Paul for a second opinion.

Just to add a little more to the story, a few weeks earlier my wife and I responded to an unsolicited offer of home refinancing from a broker who claimed that we could pay off the balance of our home loan (around $220,000) in less than 8 years. We agreed to an interview with that broker who basically convinced us that it was an offer we could not refuse so we signed up on the spot. As part of the deal the broker charged us around $3,000 for his services as well as signed us up to a lender with an interest rate of 6.90%, which was higher than our existing lender.

In the evening after we signed up I did some research and calculations only to find that we had been deceived in 3 ways:

1. We could not possibly pay off our loan on our current income and commitments within the 8 years as claimed.

2. We had signed up to one of the highest home loan interest rates on the market and,

3. That most brokers did not charge an additional fee because of the commission they received from the lender.

I acted very quickly to terminate the agreement and, in the process, became very suspicious of and cautious about home loan brokers. By the same token, my research revealed that there were products on the market that offered a substantially lower interest rate than our current loan, that we could still dramatically reduce the term of our loan with careful budgeting and that most brokers provided a free service to borrowers. When making my abovementioned enquiries, I also made it quite clear that I was very suspicious of and cautious about home loan brokers due to the recent bad experience. Anyway, back to Paul.

The product was exactly what we had asked for and with a lender who was attractive to us.

Paul responded to my request for a second opinion by stating that he had made some enquiries with lenders and felt that it was possible to get the product that I wanted from a reputable lender and that there was a way of working around my blemished credit history. My wife and I agreed to an interview with Paul.

We had a 2-hour interview at our home on a Saturday afternoon. Paul gently, openly and I believe honestly presented to us a number of home loan options that met my clearly defined preferences. There was no hard sell and, in fact, Paul wanted to leave his information with us to think over first before committing to anything. It was my wife and I who “pushed’ Paul to sign us up because the product was exactly what we had asked for and with a lender who was attractive to us because it was a local Building Society with whom we both already had our banking accounts.

After our interview Paul began working on our behalf. He dealt with our lender at a senior level to overcome the obstacles and I know that our home loan application was initially declined but ‘saved’ due to Paul’s intervention and tenacity. It was a long and tedious process, as we were required to overcome several obstacles set by the lender. My wife and I became discouraged through the process but Paul kept on working hard on our behalf and was continually reassuring that we would win out in the end. Finally, this week, we did win out by getting our home loan approved.

A high level of credibility for the lending industry and especially your company.

I have had a lifetime of sales experiences, including a few years of working as a salesperson myself. Never have I met someone who has worked so hard and bent over backwards so many times in order to achieve an outcome for a client. Paul was an absolute pleasure to deal with and my only criticism of Paul is that he works too hard.

I could go on indefinitely about Paul’s personal qualities and the quality of his service but my simple point is that Paul worked ‘above and beyond the call of duty’. He achieved a high level of credibility for the lending industry and especially your company. I am almost certain that the amount of remuneration that Paul has earned in negotiating our loan is far outweighed by the amount of effort and service that Paul provided. We were a case that most brokers felt was too hard to take on but Paul took on the challenge.

He achieved much more than simply getting a home loan approved.

I know that this has been a long-winded story but I believe that Paul deserves to be recognised and commended at least by your organisation, if not the home lending industry. I am certain that Paul would be embarrassed and reluctant to accept any recognition but he has achieved much more than simply getting a home loan approved.

My wife and I will certainly be recommending your organisation and especially Paul to anyone we know who is entering the home loan market. We also hope to continue our relationship with Paul for future business.

I trust that you will find some way of recognising Paul’s qualities because he is a role model who has set a standard to be followed by other brokers.

Yours sincerely,