Small Talk Big Ideas - Paul Steele from Green Finance Group

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Thanks for joining us for the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast, a podcast to enrich your soul, where we have conversations with inspiring people about all things property, business and life. And now, the host of Small Talk Big Ideas, Ian Ugarte.

Hey there. Welcome to Small Talk Big Ideas. And today we talked to Paul Steele from Green Financing, a guy who's been helping our clients through mortgage broking process when no one else has been able to help them. So enjoy his story, how he's got to where he's got to and how he's actually going to grow his business the next few years. As always, follow us on all the social media channels. You can find out more@ianugarde.com Paul Steele.

So Green Finance Group is who a.

Trade under Green Finance Group. This is very funny story. So we've got. I've done this a couple of times to Bianca where I've sent her. We had these two people that were Martins, right. And they were Asian, so they had similar surnames. And I sent her one Martin and said, this is the guy that's probably going to help us out with sales. Right. I gave him the. Gave her the other Martin. The other Martin goes, no, Ian's never talked to me about that.

But I can help out if you want because I'm in sales. And so it sort of worked out.

Right.

So then we've got Paul Steele and then we've got Paul Green. Paul Green is in our do it for you team. So I sent a few people to Paul Green.

Oh, good.

I don't know what you're talking about, but see. But it's Paul Green. Yeah. Is who I sent them to. But then it's Paul Steele from Green Financing.

Yes, Correct.

Confused the hell out of everyone. Where'd you grow up?

I actually grew up in Bilaweela.

Bilaweela.

Yeah. Yeah. Born in Rocky and grew up in Billo and then came up to Brisbane. Went to Nudgee to school. Yeah.

Nudge Piper.

Yes.

Yeah. Right. So what did your parents do?

My old boy was a principal. He passed away when I was four. So Mum's a teacher. So we were lucky to get into Naji. Had three other brothers. Two other brothers. Sorry. We all went to Naji. We were very lucky to go there and we're very appreciative. So.

So did you play sport there?

Did, yeah. Lots of sport. Rugby, cricket, athletics.

League or union?

Union there. And then outside of school played league as well.

Right, you. So then grew up in Brisbane, stayed in Brisbane. Renaissance.

Yep.

When did you move to Brisbane? What age?

Grade 8. So yeah.

So you're pretty old. 14. When you moved to Brisbane?

Yes, I was 12. I was turning 13 back in those days. Yeah.

And so what at Bilaweela your mum was a teacher and did you live on.

Acreage or was it.

No, just in the town. So yeah, dad was a principal there. So with the Catholic system, so they sort of rotate the principals around and he took a job there and then when he passed away, mum became a full time teacher there. So we grew up there. And then my older brother was becoming a bit of a rat bag in the billows. Stayed high so he got sent off to boarding school in grade 11. And then when he was grade 12, I was going into grade 8 and the middle brother was going to grade 9. So we went to boarding school for six months and then mum relocated to Brisbane and we lived in college green there.

I've been through Bilawilla. Yep. What was the.

The rat bag status? So your brother probably wasn't really that much of a rat bag.

Oh, more just an attitude. Just acting up in school and thinking he was above it all.

And is he better now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Naji, you know, it's like anything he was. We were all big fish in little ponds. In terms of sport, we're all quite good at sport but you know, limited competition in a small country town. So you go from there to Naji, you get a bit of a wake up call. So. So he. And yeah, Naji was the best thing for him by a long way. And we all sort of got right into the sport and the culture because we realized, you know, you take a kid from Billoweel and you walk into Naji, you go, oh, this is pretty cool. Yeah. Had a golf course and everything out of school so we thought we were, you know, high rolling by the golf course there. Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, not anymore. They've now got a retirement village down.

There which probably returning more money.

Yeah, much more.

So there's been a few golf courses that have sold off parcels of land and they've done retail. So. All right, so you finished school, you come out, you're a good student.

Solid.

Solid.

Yep, solid.

I was a good student if I wanted to be a. Yeah, yeah, been like that.

Hey, yeah.

What you want to do?

Well, I tried hard but I did so much sport. So I was I just wanted to be a part of everything.

Yeah. Did you get into any higher levels in sport?

Yeah, pretty. I played first 15 and first 11. So first level cricket, first 15, rugby and did touch and javelin at the athletics and then after school played rugby league and a couple of seasons in Q Cup and then played some union as well. Played a season of union over in Hong Kong back in 2013. That was an awesome experience. Oh, it was awesome. That was. Yeah, that was great. That was really.

How did that come about? Like the talent scout or did you say I'm gonna go over there and play?

Yeah. So when you're sort of coming out there are, there's always opportunities to play union overseas. It's, it's a, it's so incredible like because my brother, elder brother, he'd gone to England after school and he spent basically 14 years overseas playing, you know, in England and Europe and Portugal. And I was playing league as a 20 year old and sort of, sort of half doing uni, half doing footy, half doing a lot of things and I thought, I thought so I thought I need to probably grow up a bit. Then the opportunity came to go to Hong Kong. So I was a personal trainer as well over there and played footy and it was great, great experience. And then my now wife, we thought we'd go back and try to. I wanted to have a crack at trying to crack the NRL over here, but via union, ironically, and then. But got injured and that sort of.

What was injury?

Oh, it was just an ankle and then a few concussions, which was always a bit scary when you actually want to have your wits about you.

Well, they weren't really well known, the concussions back then. Hey, not to the extent.

Not to the extent. And yeah, so the movie Concussion, really, that ratted a few people, especially my wife who's an ot, so she's. Yeah, she's not a real fan of me. Especially the fact that I like boxing and rugby. Not too, not ideal sports if someone wants to have their wits about them when they're in their 50s, 60s or 70s.

Yeah, I've watched a few documentaries and a few movies that have been based on true stories where, you know, these NFL players in the US end up with no money. They end up sleeping in cars, pulling their teeth out with pliers. You just go, man, like, this is serious.

Yeah, that's the thing. I mean you can shake off bumps and bruises. Like everyone who plays sport knows that they're going to be sore and have aches and pains. But yeah, you don't come back from a brain injury which it's good to extent now the exposure to you seeing lots of NRL players who are retiring like Jake Friend from the Roosters just retired. Even him is probably a little bit too late. But there's much more awareness. But yeah, we were lucky. I was pretty acutely aware of it because got a concussion in Hong Kong and my wife had took a video of me while we're in the hospital and I was on like a time loop asking the same questions every eight minutes and for some reason she'd laid the seed that she was pregnant. We were only young at that point so I was same sort of questions and then I was about to ask them and then she'd say yes, I'm pregnant. And she just freakin. But she was playing with me. Yeah. And I was. But watching that video, it was very funny. But that was pretty scary. Yeah, yeah, very scary. So.

Because I've had a few. I mean I've never played league but just playing soccer, football. Yeah, I've had a couple of concussions. Yeah. That one of them I drove home from and I don't remember the drive from the field time.

Oh yeah, that's not ideal.

And no one picked it up. It's this drug.

Yeah, it's a lot of people's identity as well. You know you see it in. Yeah, you see it in boxes. When boxes they should hang it up but they just can't because that's how. That's their significance. You know, they can't do it. And then it leads to some pretty bad results.

Yeah. All right, so you go to Hong Kong, have a good time, come back. What do you do when you come back?

So I've done well throughout all that I was studying so I did a property economics degree and I had a. Did an MBA managing in finance. I had a little PT studio throughout all that. So sort of between.

Playing rugby, studying and managing a PT gym and I was also the PT manager of. It was Go Health clubs at Nunda, the new one when it opened up there. So that was a really good experience sort of being involved in the big machine like that in the managerial role just to see how like from the start like building the, building the PT team up and that was great experience. And then from there had a little home studio in Chermside. So a girl had set it up where she rented the house. Had a gym downstairs with very basic equipment and she had a client base and she was moving overseas to Mauritius.

Yeah.

And so she said sell the business. And I was like, sweet, I'll buy it. So because I had my existing client base and I took hers over as well. And that was a great experience we were there for.

So you rented the house?

Rented the house upstairs, yeah. Lived upstairs, walked down, open the garage door. There's my gym. And it was a fantastic setup. Highly. Yeah, profitable is profitable outside of the town planning boundaries quite a bit. But it was quite funny.

As long as the neighbors are okay with it.

Well, that was a funny thing because next door was a housing commission, so they said they tend to keep to themselves a fair bit. So I was doing PT from 5am till 7pm every day for 2 years. Not a drama. And then eventually the neighbor, he got a girlfriend who lived right there and she was the one who took exception to it. So then eventually they report us to the landlord. And then the landlord like got a bit uncomfortable about it. So I said, look, we don't really want to go. So we upped the rent by about 250 bucks a week and they're like, oh, okay. So they let us stay. But eventually we eventually moved on. Anyway, I moved into, moved into Albion there. So again, that was a great experience. And the home gym was. It's a good setup.

So do you think that really early on business was a good strength for yours?

Yeah, I've always, I think I just prefer to work for myself as well. I've never really. I mean, I love being. I have lots of mentors, but also I'm pretty self driven. So I don't really need to have someone looking over my shoulder saying, have you done this yet? Have you done that? I just more sort of need to be, oh, going too far that way get bigger, you know what I mean? To have those mentors. So because at PTO you work for yourself. So I worked for myself since I was 18. I had the first, my first tax return and the accountant says, so you got a tax bill? I was like, what does that mean? He's like, because the amount, I think it said 11 grand. And I was like, so I get that back. No, you got to pay how much you got put aside?

I'm like, none.

That was a. But that was a great learning curve, you know. So just being exposed to that from day dot, you know, as an 18 year old, you sort of learn the sort of business. So yeah, I think work for myself. Understanding business, having to drive your own income as well, so you don't have that paycheck. The only time I've really had a job recently is I worked for a bank and I finished my degrees, I went and worked for Oswald bank there as a credit analyst, which is a fantastic, you know, way to cut my teeth for what I'm doing now.

Get some exposure.

Yeah. And it's sort of. And I had that job at the heart of the Rural Commission. So I was trained as if, if you don't do this right, you're gonna. You're gonna end up on Royal Commission, you know, and everyone was on eggshell. So I got basically trained as the most strict way possible. And so then when I came out as a broker, I had that training. But then all of a sudden there's. The shackles are off. If you just need this to get approved there. I was like, yeah, really?

Right, okay, okay. So you. Did you have the intention to start a brokerage?

No, I was actually. Of all things, I actually wanted to get into property development, lending, that was where I wanted to get into. But I was just too impatient. So I had. I was in the analyst role for a year and I was having conversations with a few mentors and there's, you know, property jobs coming up with SignCorp in a year. You need two years experience. And I was a year in. I'm like, this is dry for me. So. And to be honest, I actually thought, as a lot of banks do have this attitude, that the. Probably the quality of the submissions that the brokers are submitting wasn't that great. I thought I could probably do this better.

So rather than. It's always easier when you work in a bank to say, oh, the brokers are shit. But none of them actually put their money with them.

Not.

So a lot of them do it, actually go and do it themselves. So I thought, right, I'll just go and do it. Which again, I didn't do that the smartest way either. I just went bang to start my business under Green Finance Group without no wage, no backup, just PTing as well. And that was a. That was a bit of a reality check. So I've got heaps of deals on the go. Didn't take me. Took me a long time to start actually earning any money.

So did you have to do any extra study?

Yeah, so I did the cert 4 and then the Diploma in Mortgage Broking, so knocked that out basically straight away. And then, yeah, just started trying to build the. Build it up. And it was slow at first. You know, you do friends and family at first started to build a name and now we've got one. One person on board and definitely need to get a second person on asap.

Because, because here's, here's the rub, right? Like we've been sending your people and you've been getting where others, other people aren't getting over the line, you're getting it done. So give an example, someone that took 20 something days to not get an approval and you got it in seven days or something like that, you know.

So.

The thing that I've seen with mortgage brokers, and it's a question for you, is that when you're doing the front face and you're doing what's required, everything's amazing as soon as you start to bring on extras. I've seen brokerage firms in the past fall apart and not fall apart. It's just that they're the quality of the. It's your business, right?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So what I've got now is I've got a lady Jo, she's based in the Philippines, but she's under loan market. So she's actually trained in and housed by loan market over there. And so all she does basically is document verification. So she basically goes through and makes sure we've got all the documents, she renames them for us. We have naming conventions, so when I need to find something, it's just there.

And you came up with a convention naming convention?

Well, we use it at the bank and now they're actually adopting it across the loan market system, which is really handy. So her role is to do that for me. So all the legwork and then data entry and then she audits me straight away. So I basically brought her on like your job is don't let me get sued because of the Royal Commission. The whole thing is not whether you're actually showing that you can. Sorry. It's not that you're actually working in the best interest of the client, it's whether you can prove it. And someone, in layman terms, so someone looks over the file, have you spelled out that this is why this is the best option for them? So basically it's just the whole compliance thing, which is fine. We just got to roll with the times, right, which is what's sort of like it's such a dynamic landscape, the land, the lending. A lot of people are getting out of it because like it's just too hard or they go to banking where they can just get a wage again.

So yeah, in terms of quality control, that's all they'll ever do insofar as is that is the legwork basically because there's A lot of data. There's a lot of compliance there now where you've got to dot your I's, cross your T's. Because.

ASIC's mandate was fine brokers doing the wrong thing and find them a million bucks. That's what they've been told.

Right. Okay.

They wanted, they want to find people and they want to see. Because they got basically accused of being a toothless tiger. So they want to find people here. Well, they want to find. No, that's not. Let's not push the bear. Let's not poke the bear, mate. Love you, asic. So, yeah, so that's the, that's the basic mate, is to.

Delegate the stuff that anyone can do. So that basically when I have my processes, I have an initial conversation. What are the objectives? What are you looking to do? Send out your online fact find. They give us all their data, which. That's where Joe, my assistant, helps oversee and collate that. I then assess it, ready to go. Look, here's all the information. Here's what the objectives are. While I'm assessing, I call the client and say this, this scenarios. Is there anything else you need to tell me?

Because I need to know now.

Yeah. And from my credit training, I can find that stuff anyway, usually and usually pick that stuff out because I do a full assessment as if a bank does so I do a comprehensive credit report. I do all that stuff. I go through the statements because it's better to know at the front end the issues so that I can overcome them. So I actually rather, you know, you cannot identify or whether you just convert in a way that's going to be acceptable to the bank in terms of their risk appetite in terms of their policy.

Because it's really interesting, you're working with a client. Mortgage broker's job is to act on behalf of the client for the best product and outcome for them. But for some reason, clients seem to want to withhold information from you and it becomes nasty when you don't know about it. I want to say it's nasty. It becomes a bit of a surprise to you when you go and present something to a lender. A lender's done something in the background and found out. Now you've just said that you're. The reason that you're so good at what you do is because you know the exact credit checks that the banks are going to do. Yeah. Which some mortgage brokers don't even care. I just get the information from the client and so there might be a tax bill or it Might be a credit rating from Telstra getting not paying a bill or something like that, where a lot of them won't do that.

Yeah, my whole thing is I'm very competitive, if you could probably tell. But I won't submit a deal unless I'm very confident of an approval. Right. I've only had two declines in my career. One of them is because he accessed his super. And I didn't see an account that I didn't have access to. And they had another line which they didn't tell me about. And then even that we could have got overturned somewhere else, but by then that was sort of. They went a different route anyway. And the other one we got approved elsewhere, but that was because of credit scoring, which we couldn't amend. So basically, when I submit the deal, I'm putting my name to it saying, this is a deal, we're ready to go. I've done everything. So when I get. They issue an mir, which is a missing information request or an exception or something. When I get that issue from the bank, I'm pissed. Like, I'm like, oh, what is this? And so. But with that, then it's like when.

I get a request for information from a council for an application, because I want to make sure I've got everything in and they can't ask me anything.

It'S like I couldn't possibly have missed something. So. Yeah. So on that basis, usually it's a pretty smooth, smooth approval and then everyone's happy. But the other thing as well is because it is such a moving landscape. Right? So that one that we got, we got that approved in three business days, right. That particular lender, now they're at eight days because everyone's realized they can get quick approvals there. So now that's no longer a viable.

Option, so you gotta look for the next one.

Exactly. And that's what a lot of brokers don't like to do, is because it's annoying, it's uncomfortable, you gotta go.

So are you tied in? Because that's the other thing I've noticed with a lot of mortgage brokers tied into aggregators of some sort or whatever, and they can't really go outside of that, which means that their product pool is less. So do you have access to everything?

And everyone or so loan market has a very big panel. Yeah, very big panel. The latter's like 46 lenders. And even if we do need to go outside of the scope, we've got a very good relationship where we can just say, look, guys, these Guys aren't on panel but we just bring them in and there's just an invoice process that goes through and then we can do that. So in the Green Finance Group office, it's one of the biggest commercial broking writing business in the country as a family owned business.

You're one?

Yeah, I'm the big dog. No, so with Green Finance Group, so I'm part of the team. So Daniel Green, he's the owner.

Right.

So that's. So we've just put on some more resi guys. But the commercial is the bread and butter and so with that having their name behind under their name, it's really helpful.

So you've sort of run your own personal business attached to. Correct. So you basically put a bolt on onto their business.

Yes. Right, yeah, yeah. So I'm basically.

How did you come up, how did you come across them?

So Mark Anyon, who's. He's works there as well, he's a mate of mine. Our wives are best mate. So when I was in the bank, he was sort of chatting, you know, what are your plans? And he's telling me about Granny and yeah, when the time came up we just had a chat with Granny and said, this is what I want to do, I think I know everything. And he goes, all right, I'll give you a crack. Here you go. He'll sign you off. And then I learned pretty quickly that I didn't know everything right. But it's the best way to learn as a baptismal file that first six months, just.

Working everything out, you know, just working out by feel. It's the best way to learn because you never forget a stuff up, you know, if you stuff up, you know, you don't do it twice. Yeah. So that was how I sort of come to where I learned a lot very quickly about different lenders. Because the credit side of things and the complex side of things, that was my training. So in terms of the actual deal, I could do that with my eyes closed. It's knowing it's what I've had to learn is what the different lenders appetites are and how to treat them and how to convey it to them and how to. That BDM relationship is paramount. You need like I've got some really good relationships with BDMs now because how.

Much sway do they really have? The business development managers, like they depends.

It's all about, it's all about those relationships. If the BDMs have good relationships with credit, they understand credit, then they can, they can help things. I Like they can help you out if you need like. And that's why I always try to, before I submit a deal I need to be very comfortable with it because then if I need to ask a favor I've got the runs on the board to say hey mate, can you have a look at this one? Can you help massage this through? Because it's, it's a bit, you know, it's on the, it's on the border there. But here's the bit against why it's a deal. And then the, you know, the other.

Part of this too is understanding property. I mean you did a property degree.

There's a lot of brokers out there that don't really understand what people are doing in a development style deal. So that's the first thing you obviously got an understanding of what property's about.

Yeah.

The second part of that is, you know, you invest in self.

Yeah. So we've got, we've got a property in Berndle which we've done a, we've done the cosmetic component and now we've obviously keep having babies. So it sort of gets hard to. We haven't decided what our plan is yet in terms of. The original plan was to.

Extend it, turn it to a 5 and 4 and then as obviously to a high res and then, then buy another owner rock and then do the same thing. But it's actually a perfect location because we just haven't bit the bullet yet about what our best can always be a postal address. It's more just that it's convenient right at the moment and it's like the market in Bernda. Like I'm just financing a property near Bernal train station. Thousand meters, thousand square meter block, single story house in the granny flat. 845,000.

So crazy. A year ago we were buying places in Berndle and Tagum for $530,000. And we had a choice of all the properties and we had a choice of timelines and conditions. Right. We're in the bargain seat and I've seen this market Australia wide. I've seen it once before. So this is the second time. So 85 to 88. You're probably too young for that. And I was, I would have been so 85. So I was.

16. 15. 16, yeah. Right. My brother just bought his first.

You were following it though.

Well, my brother bought his first house in 88 with interest rates at seven and a half percent and he bought it for $107,000 and he and his wife going we paid $7,000 too much for this.

The place is worth three point something now. Right. So. So I got to see that Australia wide capital growth. Oh, absolutely crazy. But that Australia wide growth that happened. And everyone talks about the doomsday and you know, and Martin north and Harry Dante. Every year the prices are going to plummet. The prices are going to plummet. And you know, they said it's 62, they said it's 70, they said at 88, they said it 2004, 2008 or 2015, 2019, you know. And yes, it takes a hit, but it's just cycle that just keeps coming back. Right. So a year ago, any choice of anything at any price, really.

Yeah.

Literally three months later I was turning up at open houses and it was in the middle of COVID and people with masks on, 40 groups. So 80 people standing at the door waiting to go in three at a time, you know, and, and it's just how quickly things move. And you've also got to think Brisbane too. I've been pushing Brisbane for about 22 months now and we've had 29.3% in the last 12 months in Brisbane. And that's, and that's because.

It didn't have the exodus out of Sydney and Melbourne that they normally have, which they had in 2004 peaked in Sydney and 2007 they peaked here in Southeast Queensland. But when it happened again in 2013, 14, 15, no one left.

Yeah.

So I don't know why. Then Covid hit. So then people were in lockdown in Melbourne. And so the people that should have gone came, people that were coming came. And the people that were locked down and were coming in the next 10 years came as well.

It's been a perfect storm with Brazil. Like the extra Runway that, you know, the new casino, the, the, the infrastructure, the other thing as well as Brazil was very flat. Right. 10 years of that it was leading up, it was very. Had to happen and now it's just gone. And I, the way I explained as well, I think everyone's. And the agents, the agents out, everyone's got fomo. I think with, with COVID I think what Covid did to everyone, and this is just my, obviously just my opinion is that everyone sort of did a stock take and went, you know what, I've been pretty lazy. I could probably do more with myself. The people who were renting who have been thinking about buying, got proactive. People who were constantly and could buy investor properties are like, right, I'm actually going to go find out what the goal is and then that's just been a perfect storm. With rates so low, rent so high rental demand, like it's just a no brainer. When you look at, you know, you look at fees as you look interest only, rents at 2.5% locked in for three years.

That's crazy.

And you got people fighting over your rental property as a standard rental. It's a no brainer.

Yeah. So on that interest only or P.

And I depends on the situation and depends on the applicants. So look, if everyone's got, if anyone's got bad debt or you know, non deductible debt, I'll always say investment, go interest only because it's, you know, you preserve that deductibility, knock out that and then use that equity to go again.

Yeah. So that's the thing, I never, if you're owner occupier, just go. You just want to smash down your bad debt and redraw so that you can good debt it. Right. The people that buy investment properties that want to go pni. It never makes any sense to me because unless you only ever want to buy one investment property.

Yeah.

You want to buy two. What's the use of paying down the principal if you're going to refinance this in three, five, eight years time, you know, and people suffer with that one there. So.

What'S yours? Can your wife come into the business? Doesn't need to. Doesn't want to.

Yeah. Well, she's, she's already done two degrees. She's done a psychology and a arts degree in majoring sociology and she's halfway through an OT degree. So she's, you know, when I start talking finance and numbers, her eyes glaze over and she's just like, okay, can you tell me when you're done? But she's so. But in saying that she's just had our third kid who's only six weeks old, so. And I need someone so she there we are looking at possibly bringing her in some sort of capacity.

And that's that one thing that I said that when you're going good as a mortgage brokerage, because it's you front facing, the best thing to do is bring someone in close to you that you know, has some skin in the game.

We have, when I had the gym, we did try, it didn't work that well. So I like to just get things done.

Yeah.

Right then I'm very much. Whereas my wife Annie, she is very detail oriented. She will not touch it until she knows she's going to do it properly. So in terms of Quality, if any touches it, it's perfect. Right. But it needed to be done three hours ago, in my opinion. So that's. So that's something we need to. Need to trade off, I think.

Yeah. And that's very typical of any relationship. Opposites attract, really.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah. All right. So what's the move forward with the business?

Yeah. So at the moment. So we're office at a new farm, but I'm mostly. Mostly work from home, which is obviously ideal when you're trying to help with kids, but not ideal, you're trying to hide from them. But now, just to keep it growing, I am looking to bring someone on in the next couple of months, ideally someone based in Australia who can sort of be like a customer service role, who can help oversee basically what I look at, someone who can do the front end and the back end, so help with the leads, help qualify, help consolidate. Here's what they wanted to do, then I can get to the meat of it quickly and. And then obviously the settlement, the handover and all those sort of. Those questions that sort of just come up. That's the plan. But at the moment it just keeps. Keep servicing all the customers because at the moment it's just. It's just nuts. It is absolutely crazy.

So what were you writing? What were you writing before this? Crazy, crazy times. Like how many loans roughly a week?

It sort of goes off, Val. Yeah, it sort of goes off Numbers, you know, like, I was sort of. What would be the numbers? Yeah, at the moment I'm probably doing, you know, settling seven or eight a month at the moment. And that's that. Since I've had Joe on, it's. Life's a lot better, so. But yeah, it's probably gone up 50, 100% in the last few months. And like, in. At the moment, there's actually. I am. I am having to turn people away if I just can't come to.

Or when you say settling seven or.

Eight purchases or refinances, mostly purchase, because a lot of the stuff I get as well is from agents. So, yeah, I don't do commissions for agents. That's just a rule that we policy that greening applied in terms of. A lot of brokers will pay a sales agent 20% up front. But as a company, we just decided that we just don't do it. So they come to us because they know we'll get the job done. So because of that, it was a little bit slower getting agents on board because obviously they want to get paid, but it doesn't take long. When they lose a settlement, they say.

That'S the thing, isn't it? Like they, they go and recommend someone, they can't get it over the line, which means they lose the contract and.

They have to regard.

And then they go again, a lot of extra work. And then the new person may have their own broker.

Yes. Yeah.

So they know they're going to get paid their commission if they come to.

You, because deal is going to go through 100%. And, and I'm very upfront with them from the start. If I get a deal in front of me and I think it's a dead duck, you're not going to a quick no. I've never had someone be annoyed at me for saying, this is why it's a no. And this is what's a no. Now, to be honest, that doesn't happen very often because there's always a solution. But that just, it's an easier, it's a better experience for everyone, the agent, for the buyers. Because as anyone who's ever gone through it, if you get invested in a, in buying a house, like you've gone through the process, you put off, they accept it, you're like, y go and submit to the bank. The banks are taking a month to go through that process, to not get approved. I just can't imagine that, like, that would just do my head in. So whenever I can, I'm impatient or competitive. So I want that deal now for them. So that's why we do the hard part at the front. And then when it's submitted, I know it's gonna get approved. It's just a matter of when and if they say they're gonna assess it by 12 o' clock on Thursday, you can be sure as shit that I'm ringing them at 1205 on Thursday and say, where is it?

Yeah.

And then that way it just helps them accountable and that way I can tell my clients before they have to chase me, this is where it's at. So the hard part as well is with.

With from the Royal commission as well, and it's also managing my workflow is when you have dozens of people coming and wanting to know their capacity. And now that's a very. Like, why.

The banner, Mike, is when someone says, what's my capacity? And they've got three properties, four different lines. Got this over here, they've got variable income. It's like. Well, what do you mean?

Like?

It turns out, because there's so many variables, right? There's so many variables. There's so many lenders, you know, there's 46 different lenders, they all have their different policies, they all treat things differently. You know, depending on how much, how much cash you're gonna put towards it. You know that's gonna affect lvr, it's gonna affect policy rental income. Are we, you know what rental income is feasible with it right now. Like what the bank goes in. So that's, it's a matter of working through that process and the guys are getting much better at that.

And so it's not just a matter of someone coming to you and say what's my capacity to buy the next one? And you actually have to sit down and have a good full on look at something 100%.

And, and people get annoyed with that first because I say look, it's a house of cards. Because if I, if I say you can buy a one million dollar property and then when you come back and go try to converts 500, you can't do it, you're gonna be really pissed off at me.

Yeah. Right.

So basically I have to actually do a full assessment of you before I give you a recommendation. If that means the classic one is someone comes to me and says I haven't done my tax returns yet, can you just tell me what I can borrow?

No. So that's, that's a sort of the hard one. But again once people understand that, you know, for me to give them actual guidance I need the whole, I need the whole piece of the puzzle.

Yeah.

And then that way like so we've had this conversation before. I don't very rarely now do I do pre approvals just because pre approvals themselves at the moment with lenders, they're not really worth the piece of paper they're written on because they don't fully assess them. There's always. Yeah. There's just too many variables. So it's a bit cocky. But I say my pre approval is worth a lot more than that because if I say you're good to go, you're good to go because it means I've done the whole process because I'm shit scared that I'm going to tell you you can go and buy and then you're going to come back and it's not going to stack up. Right. So that's why. And if I say you got a capacity for 450, I've left a little bit of fat in there as well. But actually no, I shouldn't say that out loud. There's no fat. That's Your cap don't go high.

Which leads us to the next thing. In the early 2000s, I could go down, find a broker on a piece of deck and say I earned $500,000 and they would give me whatever I wanted.

Yeah.

Last year there was announcement, federal government said that, you know, we're going to ease off on apra's eve off. We're going to ease off on, and take responsibility away from the lender and put it on the consumer. The borrower.

Yeah.

With what's happened in the marketplace, my thing was I can't see it happening.

No.

Yeah.

I believe it when I see it. Yeah.

Are you still talking about it?

Yeah, I'm not sure to be honest, because they were, they were talking about repealing them is around this time is meant to actually happen.

It's supposed to come out late March.

Yeah. So the thing is, I've got a perfect storm here with low rates, high consumer confidence, property price are going, going gang bust if they do that now.

Oh, that would be crazy.

Yeah. So to be honest, I actually think they're going to actually try to curb, curb things a little bit sooner rather than later. I mean, like in terms of fixed rates, for the last two years I've been telling people, do not fix, do not fix. And people got annoyed. I'm like, just trust me. Like, I shouldn't give advice about fixing or not, but just how about you just get variable first and if you want to set, you could, you can always ring your bag and fix it. Right. But once you fix, you can't fix it very easily. But now, you know, with the cash rate as it is, the way things are going, you know, it's got to.

Be a question in time where you say that, but you know, I've only fixed two loans ever in 30 years and I lost out twice. Yeah. And I always say to myself, they're paying. Not that they're good at it, but they pay economists a lot of money in the background of the bank to set up fixed interest rates so that they wouldn't set a fixed interest rate.

So that they lost 100%. And that's what I said to people as well. I used to say you're basically back in your own judgment over the banks when it comes to that in terms of things. But nowadays it just seems, it just seems. It's so low. Can it go lower? I don't think so. Just because it just seems like everything is going up. Like the confidence, everything seems to be gangbusters. So I don't See how the rates could go down. But this is not financial advice. So.

Disclaimer. Disclaimer.

Yeah, there's definitely that component. But also it's also this comes down to your situation. If you're setting up this investment property, you're not going to, you don't turn property over one to two years unless you're, you know, that's what you, that's your journey. So fixing for three years reinvest a property at that rate.

And you know, and you. So because for some people it's an anxiety thing. People hate lending. Some people hate lending money or borrowing money, I should say. Yeah. And it's peace of mind for them to know that they've got X amount of payments every week and. Yeah.

And then for budgeting and stuff.

That's great. I mean you've seen Karina's deal where she basically bought a block of units off an owner that had fixed their interest rate at 8.9% for 10 years. And when did they fix that was 2019. So in 2009. Yeah, imagine. Oh man, just what were you thinking?

Yeah, I had a mate of mine reach out to me.

He does. He'd fix at 5% for five years and he's like, can you help me? I'm like.

But his break cost bill was like, oh, I want to say 60 grand.

Yeah, it's just, you know, and, and that's what happened to me twice. Once it cost me 23 grand to break and then the other because I was selling and the other time I just waited it out and sold it after that. Yeah, yeah. I certainly wouldn't go down that path. What's the one tip that you would give anyone that wanting that needs to get a loan?

As a first time buyer or as an investor?

As an investor.

As an investor. Well, it comes back to what knowing what you're, what your objectives are. You know, your objectives, like what you actually want to achieve. Is it, are you wanting capital growth? Are you wanting cash flow? Are you wanting a negative gearing if you understand what you're actually wanting to do? Everything else is just steps. It's just a process from the step. You know, it's just a process to get you there. So I guess probably do a bit of reading and do a bit of, you know, just having some exposure. Go look at some properties as well and see like would this actually, would I be happy to own this? Because that's the other thing that, you know, for first home buyers, what's the best advice I've ever heard and Is it, Are you happy to live there? Like if the property price shit itself tomorrow, are you happy to live here for 10 years time and for the cycle to come back around again? So I guess it's just identify your objectives and then just get good people on board who aren't gonna just give you yeses. Like they need to actually be able to stand up to you and say no, you can't do that because in the long run you're gonna get yourself in trouble.

What, are there still people looking to get negative gearing?

Yes, yes. Makes me laugh when they first come to me. Yes, I have had those conversations. But again and I have, but you know, I've very much adopted. I've probably stolen some of your lines as well when it comes to it. But yes, it is, it's less favorable thing is not many properties in negative market, you know, because it's just such a hot market.

I just love those people that, you know, I just bought my client a positively good property. Well, that's not freaking hard at the moment.

All right, how do they get in contact with you?

So I think I'll just share my number.

It's.

I'll share my number and it's just that paul@greenfinancegroup.com and I'll put up all my details there as well. So. Yeah, is that you phone call? There's a hot, hot looking stuff.

How long ago was that?

Well, I was only like a year and a half.

Doesn't look like you.

I didn't even put makeup on either. They tried to put makeup on me.

Yeah, I've got my glasses, I can't really see. But yeah, no, that's. Yeah. So just reached out. I'm always happy to have a chat. I do need to start setting delegating times to call people back rather than just taking phone calls. So I get myself three hours in application. I've taken four, four or five phone calls. Fed the baby, done this, done it.

Fair enough, yeah. All right, thanks. Paul Steele from Green Finance. Come in and talk to us today.

Thanks very much, mate.

Awesome. So there you have it. Paul Steele who seems to be getting stuff over the line because he does much more than the every average standard mortgage broker. He wants to make sure the deal is going to get over the line. So you've got his contact details there. If you want to get more information from him, as always, follow us on all the social media channels. You can get us on enuguado.com thanks for today's. Listening to today's episode and we'll catch you next time on Small Talk Big Ideas.

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