The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) has released the 12th edition of its Industry Intelligence Service Report, a detailed analysis of the broker channel and, crucially, how much mortgage brokers get paid on average.
The key data showed that pay had risen by 14.55% compared to the previous year’s data, with the average broker taking home $161,894. The number of active mortgage brokers also grew, by 3%, making the wage rise even more remarkable.
The data was collected between 1 October 2020 and 31 March 2021, when the housing boom had begun but was not yet in full swing, so there is potential that it has grown yet further.
The report also detailed the total settlements that the broker channel delivered in the six month period covered, topping out at $122.81 billion in residential home loans, a rise of 24.4% year-on-year and the highest that has ever been recorded by the MFAA Industry Intelligence Service Report, which began in 2015.
“As evidenced in the report, mortgage brokers were able to assist a record number of customers in taking advantage of the historically low interest rates and strength in the market and in doing so achieved some of their most positive results to date,” said MFAA CEO Mike Felton.
“The broker channel settled $122.81 billion in residential home loans for the six-month period, the highest value recorded for any six-month period since the MFAA commenced reporting in 2015, up 24.4% year-on-year.”
“This result was indicative of a strong performance across the board from the nation’s mortgage brokers with up-front commissions growing by a significant 19.93% year-on-year, reaching $94,096 per broker for the period.”
“This helped to achieve a healthy national average combined remuneration per broker of $161,894 per annum, or a 14.55% increase year-on-year, despite a 3.5% increase in the number of brokers in the industry.”
More concerningly, the percentage of women in the mortgage broking industry fell year-on-year, to the lowest level ever recorded, 25.8%. The total number remained largely steady, but with the wider growth of the industry, the percentage dropped, with men outnumbering women by more than two to one in terms of new people joining the industry.
“Disappointingly though, the proportion of female brokers has seen a decline to the lowest observed level, even as the total broker population recovered and increased period-on-period,” said Felton.
“After boosting market share through the provision of much needed liquidity to the home loan sector during the 2020 recession, the period between October 2020 and March 2021 has seen the downward trend of the market share of the major banks resume with a 7.6 percentage point decline from 51.7% to 44.1%.”
“Overall, October 2020 to March 2021 was a positive period for the mortgage broking industry, as brokers responded to customer demand driven by record low interest rates, government support and a buoyant national housing market.”
