It started when I was 14
My parents split when I was a teenager. It wasn’t easy, but one thing that came out of it was practical: my mum needed help getting her finances in order, and somehow that job fell to me.
I sat down with her, worked through what was coming in and what was going out, and built her a budget. It wasn’t sophisticated, this was the mid-1990s and I was doing it on paper, but it worked. Watching someone go from anxious and overwhelmed to calm and in control because of something I helped put together left an impression that never really faded.
My parents had very different relationships with money. My father was careful, methodical, and cautious, debt was something to be avoided, not embraced. My mother was the opposite: carefree, comfortable with risk, happy to back herself. Growing up between those two perspectives gave me an early education in how differently people think about money, and how much those beliefs shape the decisions they make.
My father’s view, the traditional one, was that debt was a burden. Pay it off, stay out of it, sleep better at night. And there’s wisdom in that. But the world has shifted. Building wealth today almost always involves borrowing strategically: the right loan at the right time for the right asset. Debt isn’t the enemy. Poorly structured debt is.
That realisation took time. But it’s why I do what I do now. I help people find the right loan not just to buy something now, but to build their future efficiently.
My default position
My default position is simple: if you can afford not to borrow, don’t.
That might sound like an odd thing for a mortgage broker to say. But I mean it, and I think it’s important to be upfront about it.
Debt is a tool. Used well, it accelerates wealth creation, opens doors that would otherwise take decades to reach, and lets you make moves when timing matters. Used poorly, it adds stress, limits your options, and costs you more than the asset was ever worth.
My father’s instinct, that debt is a burden to be paid off and avoided where possible, wasn’t wrong. It was just incomplete. The fuller picture is that some debt, at the right time, for the right purpose, is one of the most powerful financial decisions you can make. Other debt is simply expensive and unnecessary.
So when someone comes to me, my first consideration isn’t how much they can borrow. It’s whether they should borrow at all, and if so, how much actually makes sense. Sometimes the answer is less than the bank would approve. Sometimes it’s a different structure entirely. Occasionally it’s not yet, come back in six months.
I’d rather have that honest conversation upfront than put someone in a loan that doesn’t serve them.
Two decades, two careers
After school I went into banking. I spent years inside the system, learning how lenders think, what they look for, and more importantly, what makes them say no. I understood the products, the policies, and the gaps between what banks advertise and what they’ll actually approve.
Then I moved into IT. Different industry, same underlying skill: understanding complex systems and translating them into something useful for real people.
By the time I decided to start Loanset, I knew how lenders think from the inside – not from reading their websites, but from working alongside the people who set the policies and from building the technology they needed to manage their work.
Why I started Loanset
Here’s the thing that frustrated me, and still does.
Borrowing money is one of the most significant financial decisions most people make. And yet the experience of getting help with it has gotten worse over the years, not better. You ring your bank with a genuine question and you end up in a phone tree. You try the app and hit a chatbot. You visit a branch and wait 45 minutes to speak to someone who can’t actually approve anything.
Banks aren’t bad. They’re just built for scale, millions of customers, standardised products, automated everything. That works fine when your situation fits neatly into their boxes. But a lot of people don’t. First home buyers who don’t know what they don’t know. Self-employed borrowers whose tax returns make lenders nervous. Families who’ve outgrown their current loan but aren’t sure where to start. People who’ve recently moved to Australia and are still building their credit history.
These are the people the system is least equipped to help, and the people who need the most help. Loanset exists for them.
What I actually do
I’m a mortgage broker, which means I work across 30+ lenders to find the right loan for your situation, not the easiest one to approve, and not the one that pays me the most. I’m legally required to act in your best interests, and honestly, even if I weren’t, repeat business and referrals are the only growth strategy that makes sense for a business like mine. If I do right by you, you’ll tell someone.
I help people with:
Home loans – whether you’re buying your first place, your next one, or an investment property. I’ll work through your borrowing capacity, compare options across lenders, and handle the paperwork so you don’t have to.
Refinancing – if you’ve been with the same lender for a few years and haven’t reviewed your rate, there’s a reasonable chance you’re paying more than you need to. I’ll run the numbers honestly, including any break costs or fees, and tell you whether it’s actually worth moving.
Car and Personal loans – faster than most people expect. Car loans can often be approved within a few hours. Personal loans can be used for almost anything – a renovation, a wedding, a holiday, consolidating smaller debts, or covering an unexpected expense. I’ll find the right rate and structure for what you need.
Debt restructuring – sometimes the issue isn’t the interest rate, it’s the structure. Multiple debts, multiple repayments, cash flow that’s tighter than it needs to be. I’ll look at the full picture and find a structure that gets you paying things off faster.
Self-employed borrowing – lenders assess self-employed income differently, and some are significantly more flexible than others. Knowing which ones suit your situation, and how to present your application, can be the difference between an approval and a knock-back.
SMSF borrowing – borrowing inside a self-managed super fund to purchase property is a specialist area with strict rules around loan structure and compliance. I work with lenders who understand SMSF lending and can help you navigate the requirements without the usual runaround.
Life, Trauma and Injury insurance – most people focus on getting the loan without thinking about what happens if something goes wrong. I can arrange protection through ALI Group that pays a lump sum if you die, suffer a serious illness, or are injured in an accident. It’s optional and you decide whether it’s right for your situation.
A story worth telling
I met a couple, I’ll call them Colin and Jo, at my local park while walking my labradoodle, Nox. They had two kids, a combined income around $170k, and had been with the same bank for five years. Mortgage, two credit cards, some ATO tax debt sitting in the background making them quietly anxious.
They weren’t in crisis. They just hadn’t had anyone sit down with them and look at the whole picture.
We did exactly that. Compared options across lenders, found a rate about 0.4% lower than what they were on, which doesn’t sound like much until you do the maths. Over 18 months, that’s around $11,000 back in their pocket. We restructured a couple of things, tidied up the debt, and six months later their cash flow had genuinely improved.
They booked a family trip to Vietnam. Guilt-free.
No crisis averted, no last-minute miracle. Just someone finally taking the time to look at their situation properly.
Beyond the loan
Most brokers arrange your finance and hand you over to someone else. I don’t always work that way.
Over the years I’ve found that some of the most valuable things I do for clients have nothing to do with paperwork.
I’ve stood at live auctions with clients who were new to Australia, recently arrived from the US, and acted as a buffer between them and auctioneers who were doing what auctioneers do: applying pressure. Having someone next to you who knows the process, stays calm, and isn’t emotionally attached to the outcome changes the dynamic entirely.
I’ve flown interstate for clients who needed a neutral third party on the ground. One client was looking to secure a property in Invermay, Launceston, partly to reduce Land Tax exposure, and wanted someone there who understood both the financial and practical implications of the decision. So I went.
I’ve also used my network to turn around property inspection reports within 24 hours, giving clients the information they needed to make an offer before a property went to auction, the kind of turnaround that simply isn’t possible if you’re starting from scratch.
None of this is in the job description. But the loan is rarely the only thing that needs sorting.
How I work
I’m based in Carnegie, Melbourne, and most of my clients are local, but I work with people in Queensland, NSW, Tasmania, and elsewhere across the country. Everything can be done remotely if that suits you.
I’m available after hours and on weekends. This isn’t a marketing line, it’s how I’ve structured the business deliberately, because most people are sorting their finances around work, kids, and everything else life throws at them. A 6pm call or a Saturday morning conversation works just as well as anything during business hours.
Not sure where to start? Run your numbers on our Calculators page before we speak – it’ll give you a useful picture of where you stand.
It typically takes a 30-minute conversation to get everything I need to give you an idea of what your options are. I handle the lender interactions, the paperwork, and the follow-up. You make the final call.
There are no upfront costs and no obligation after our first conversation. Once I present you with your options and you decide to proceed, a fee of $895 for home loans and $495 for car and personal loans will be payable upon formal approval.
I deliberately keep my client base small. There’s a limit to how many people I can serve properly, and I’d rather know 50 clients well than process 500 transactions. A lot of brokers run a volume model, free service, fast turnaround, then move on. It works for them and there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s not how I want to work. The clients I enjoy most are the ones I’m still talking to three years later, helping them refinance, buy the next property, sort out the car loan for their teenager. That’s the kind of practice I’m building.
One more thing
At Loanset, clients choose where my charitable donations go. It’s a small thing, but it matters to me. Finance has a real impact on communities, I’ve seen it firsthand, and I want the work I do to extend beyond the transaction.
If you’ve got questions, I’m a phone call away. No app menus. No hold music. Just me.
