Specialist lender Bluestone Mortgages has reached $1bn in settlements in a milestone attributed to organic, structured growth brought on through broker feedback
The lender, which brings in around 96% of its loans through the broker channel, has built momentum over time by acting on what brokers wanted within the self-employed lending space.
Bluestone has brought in $1bn since returning to the marketplace in FY14 with 54% of this being originated through the past year, Royden D'Vaz, head of sales and marketing at Bluestone Mortgages told
Australian Broker.
“The performance of the business in the last 12 months has been nothing short of unbelievable,” he said.
For the past 18 months, Bluestone had been building its brand in the specialist lending and self-employed market, filling any gaps with its tailored products and policies.
“The growth has been a long strategy about what brokers want.”
Bluestone determined that brokers were calling for hands-on, one-on-one BDM support to help guide them through the self-employed process, D’Vaz said. Brokers also wanted directed access to decision makers and underwriters, he added.
“Brokers started to realise what we stood for. We wanted them to think of us as soon as we got a deal.”
Bluestone very conscious of scaling up to meet these increased volumes by enhancing its BDM representation across all the states and hiring more members of its credit assessment team, D’Vaz said.
“We made sure that we got that right first and then we pulled the lever. The last thing we wanted to do is blow the back end up. That happens quite often in our industry and brokers don’t like that.”
For the future, Bluestone will continue to make tweaks to its products in a structured, well planned manner to cater for the changing needs of its broker partners, D’Vaz said.
It is important to get the processes, systems, technology and staff in place to cater for future growth and ensure that brokers remain loyal to the firm.
“I can’t see this growth trajectory changing in the near future. I can just see it go up and up. But to what extent? We’re not sure. We’re just going to continue doing what we’re doing. The last thing we want to do is get drunk on our own cordial.”
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