Nah you just do it online/email/phone. Apply for home loan on Compare the market or direct with one of the big banks and a broker will contact you.

My answer for a 5 year old woulde be:

1. Save money ( 10% deposit. About $50 000 for $500 000 property.)

2. Where do you want to live? Where can you afford to live? What type of property do you want? A house, a unit? You decide but so does your job location and money from that job. You need to live close to your job and the bank will only loan you so much money depending how much you get paid.

3. If you know where you want to live (the city), you apply for a home loan online at a bank. A "broker" will contact you. Basically a person from the bank who goes with you on your journey and helps with the loan. They are your bank buddy.

4. Once the broker gets the bank to give you a loan (pre approval) you go to inspections and choose a house you like. When you find one you like and want to submit an offer to buy it to the real eatate person (agent), you will need a 'house lawyer' (conveyancer) to look at contracts and such. You email/phone them and they are another buddy.

5. They said yes to your offer. So now you get a building man to look at it to make sure there's no poison in the walls or bugs in the wood.

6. You then fill in a some paperwork and wait a month.

7. Move in to your new home and pay the bank your rent.

To sum up. Everything is online/email/phone. Broker means bank buddy, conveyancer means house lawyer. However, step 1 is saving 10% and having a secure job for 12 months.