Fees and Services

The mortgage broking industry in Australia was established in the 1980’s to give clients an option for someone else to do the research and offer a choice as compared to just going to one of the major banks. Many of the original mortgage brokers were ex-bank officers taking the opportunity to make better money.

Australian mortgage brokers do not usually charge a fee for their services as they are paid by the lenders for introducing loans. Mortgage brokers are paid an up front commission that is on average 0.6% of the loan amount and an ongoing trail commission that is on average 0.15% of the loan amount per annum paid monthly. These commissions can vary significantly between different lenders and loan products.

At Reid Consultants we have deliberately differentiated ourselves from other mortgage brokers, and this is how we have succeeded in doing so.

We will offer a choice of lenders (if applicable) and we provide that list of the four to six most competitive lenders and disclose the commission rates on all of these so you can make an informed choice. We do not have a preference for which lender you use, at last count we have used 23 different lenders of the 36 or so lenders on our panel we have access to.                                               

Our Fee Structure

We offer a professional service for our clients, whether you are looking at your first purchase, refinance and upgrading or purchasing an investment. In all cases the initial consultation is free.

Home Owners

The fee model we use for home owners, whether they are first buyers or refinancing is a commission based model which is paid by the lender. We generally refinance with your existing lender where possible as long as they are competitive with other lenders. We may charge $500 (plus GST) upfront as an engagement fee and where the loan is settled, we rebate that fee back to you, so there is no effective cost to you for this service.

Property Investors

We offer two models including a fee-for-service model which is unlike most other mortgage brokers. The first model is as above for a Home Owner. The second model is a professional consultancy service where we provide a long term strategic plan and documentation for you to be able to build a property portfolio over time to create long term wealth for you and your family . We charge a fixed fee for this service because your investment objectives are our first priority and our advice is unbiased to help you best meet your goals.

Our fee stucture:

For the professional service strategic plan:

• Initial engagement fee of $450 (plus GST) per investment property which includes credit checks and an initial property valuation (if used).
• On provision of the strategy document and plan, our fee is $2,000 (plus GST) per investment property.

Fees outlined above are charged irrespective of whether you use our services to arrange the loan on your behalf as you are paying for the strategic plan work.  However if you use us to arrange the loan, we are still paid by the lender as above. In this instance Reid Consultants will rebate any up-front commission (net of GST) received from a lender of your choice back to you when we have been paid by that lender.

In many cases this means that there is a net benefit to you for this service after tax.

Referrers

Our normal method of working with professionals we refer clients to is that we do not accept referrer payments. In any rare cases we are paid, it is fully disclosed upfront and if you use our services for the loan, we rebate that referrer payment back to you. The reason we will refer is we have and/or our clients have used their services and have been pleased with the results.