Top Franchise Brokerages 2017

MPA’s Top 10 reports have long been about celebrating high performers. However, they have another, more serious purpose: to find out why some brokerages flourish while others are left behind. How, for instance, do Australia’s Top 10 Franchise Brokerages beat other brokerages with identical brands, year after year?

Standing out from other brokers has only recently become make or break for brokerages. Most brokers continue to see their competitors as the local bank branches, but they should be looking at other brokers instead. The MFAA’s latest Industry Intelligence Service report showed brokers are entering markets faster than those markets are growing; in the case of NSW, they are actually shrinking. With the banks appearing set on major changes to broker remuneration, broking faces its biggest challenge since the NCCP.

The brokerages that emerge from such changes will need to be different from their competitors and better at writing loans, and the brokerages in this Top 10 are both. While they all benefit from the franchise system, particularly when it comes to compliance, this also means they need to find other ways to stand out than through branding. Many combine well-established clients and referral partners with social media marketing strategies; most have taken on new staff , or retrained existing staff , rather than resting on their laurels.

MPA’s Top 10 Franchise Brokerages are ranked by a combination of four metrics: total loan book size; settlements over a 12-month period; settlements over that 12-month period per loan writer; and conversion rate. We rank brokerages on each metric, then combine the rankings to produce the final ranking that you see here. In the event of a tie we prioritise the brokerage with the best performance over the most recent 12 months, to celebrate current performance.

This method has remained unchanged for several years, and it’s also the method we use for our Top 10 Independent Brokerages report. We accepted applications both from franchise head offices and also direct to our website, and all numbers were checked with the franchise head offices. We’d like to thank all the brokerages that applied for this year’s Top 10, whether or not they appear in this list.

Look out for our Top 10 Independent Brokerages report in the next issue of MPA.