Any female mobile mortgage brokers?

[Jaycee]

I'm thinking of a career change and I'm wondering if it's worth going to an information evening for a well known mortgage broking company.

It's something that I always thought I wouldn't mind doing but only now starting to think about it a little more seriously.

I guess my biggest concern is how safe it is walking into other people's houses not knowing anything about them. Are there any female mobile brokers around to shed a bit of light as to how they feel about doing this?

Also general info would be great. Do you enjoy doing it? What kind of salary, is it base plus commission etc.

How many hours are involved?

Any info would be appreciated!

[Teeki]

I'm not a mobile mortgage broker, but my job did involve finance and going to customers places when I didn't know them - most times off on some rural farm so I guess it could be considered unsafe.

We did training about what to do in these situations, but it was based around having others to count on back at work, I don't know how it works being a mobile broker, are you more on your own?

Anyway, I would tell someone exactly where I was going, with a mud map if needed. Tell them when I expect to get there, and call when I'm there. Park in a way that makes it very easy to leave - park on the road, reverse into their driveway, or if it's a farm park close to the house facing the way out. When you're there tell the person how long you expect to be and if you're going over call and let them know, or they should call you if they've not heard. Don't let yourself get "blocked in" in the house, sit where you can easily get out if needed. Then when you leave, call your person again and tell them they can expect you back in an hour/however long it'll be. If I was going to long appointments where I'd go straight home, I'd also call DH when I got there, and then if the work person would have left I'd keep following up with DH.

I never personally had any issues with visiting any of the farms I went to. Usually I'd spoken to the customers quite a bit on the phone, and they never had any reason to be agro or anything. There was one time though that I asked my manager to come with me to a customer in the city as he'd not had things go well for him and was getting slightly abusive on the phone. He and his office guy also randomly turned up in the branch one time and started causing a scene, the branch manager had them go get a coffee and told them not to come back til they were calm. I called my manager so he was aware of what was going on, and the branch manager didn't let me come out til he was satisfied they were calm and then sat in on the start of the meeting.

I'm sure a broking company would do similar training, and you'd get a good idea of how the customer might be over the phone. My experience is that in the beginning, when you don't know them, it'll be fine - they want something from you and you're just gathering info. But if they get declined or it takes longer than they'd like, then things might change but you'd know that from speaking to them, and can maybe meet somewhere neutral or have someone go with you.

[TaRhLi.]

In my pre baby life I was a Mortgage Broker for about 5 years.

In regards to safety, we always had an admin person who knew our calendars and appointments and had an idea of how long a standard interview would take. When I would arrive at my appointment I would text our admin person to say I had arrived and then when I finished and was leaving I would text again to say I was all done and on my way home.

It was a good job pre kids as I was based from home and would get up in the morning and do all my paperwork in the morning, have a shower around lunch time and then have the afternoon to myself - non work - when I would do my shopping or whatever I wanted and then in the evenings I would be out at appointments. I worked for a large builder in Victoria so spent most weekends at our display villages doing loan assessments for people looking to build to give them an idea of what they could afford to purchase.

I was on a good base salary + commission (which was good but not huge) and also had a car allowance, and all my equipment provided - laptop, printer, scanner, stationary.

You need to be good at organisation and managing a lot of people and files at the same time as from an appointment to then lodging an application to them following through to the loan settlement can take a long time - especially if it is to purchase a property as in Victoria we can have up to 90 days settlements - because unless the loan settles you don't get your commission and you also need to manage that client until settlement occurs, plus all of you new clients you see as well.