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Steve Cockrane, managing director of Australian mortgage broker Lifestyle Mortgage Solutions, Mulgrave, believes there is a lot he can learn about the business from his peers in the United States - and vice versa.
That's because there are enough similarities between the two countries to make comparisons, but also enough differences to provide mortgage professionals in both nations with ways to rethink and possibly improve the business in their respective markets, Mr. Cockrane explained during a recent visit to the United States and National Mortgage News' offices here.
Australia, for example, is like the United States in that its brokers stress the service they offer in helping borrowers obtain loans. But the establishment of the mortgage broker industry is relatively new to Australia, he said.
"It's right in its infancy and it is going through an explosive growth period," Mr. Cockrane said. "It is growing about 30% per year."
There had initially been some resistance to the industry on the part of at least one of the banks that dominates Australia's mortgage lending market, he said. But in the last year, one of the influential financial institutions holding out against the practice changed its ways and began doing business with mortgage brokers.
"Up until about the last 12 months, one of the largest banks, which is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, didn't deal with originators at all or mortgage brokers at all," Mr. Cockrane said. "But in the last 12...