Brendan Wong
The newly appointed head of LJ Hooker Home Loans will continue to push for closer ties between the group's finance brokers and real estate agents.
Finance and real estate industry executive Paul O’Regan has assumed the new role following the decision by Peter Bromley, an eight-year company veteran, to leave LJ Hooker Home Loans.
Mr O’Regan told Real Estate Business the business model under his leadership would be about maximising the value finance brokers could add to the real estate business.
“We want to be able to provide the real estate people with pre-approvals of clients so they can go and find them a property," he said.
“It’s basically turning a traditional thinking around on its head where finance people are just basically waiting for that lead, to going the other way where we’re actually leading the way from a financial point of view.”
Mr O’Regan said the relationship between real estate agents and mortgage brokers was important to both consumers and businesses.
“Consumers obviously get their financial advice before they go looking for houses; one so that they don’t get too disappointed if they can’t afford a place and also that they can constantly go in and negotiate with the real estate people," he continued.
“From an internal point of view, it’s probably the best relationship that you can potentially get because most of the business that real estate people hand to finance brokers is generally a very warm lead.”
LJ Hooker CEO Georg Chmiel said Mr O’Regan’s appointment was important to driving the organisation’s finance offering and their level of service to new heights.
He added that much of the company's success has been down to Mr Bromley's hard work.
“Getting LJ Hooker Home Loans to the level it is today is testament to Peter’s experience and management,” he said.
“Peter steered our finance offering through a period of growth and was instrumental in the success of our LJ Hooker branded loans, which accounts for a significant 15 per cent of our business – almost twice that of our competitors.”
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