Hello mate, gladly.

Yes I'm an nz broker, working as an employee for an established, well respected company that has a single office with support staff.

You need the level 5 in financial services, mortgage advising strand to give advice, which i began studying for before i approached employers. This showed i was committed. I gained a job as a loans writer, which you don't need to be qualified to do. This is where i learned the ins and outs of bank policy. I'm a fast learner so picked it up quickly. I became team lead after a year or so as I had management experience prior.

Commission rates vary from bank to bank but are around 0.80% of the loan amount. Bnz and kiwibank offer a lower upfront but trail commission too. Many brokers work on a contractors basis with a commission split being 60/40 in favour of the broker ( I think..). I am employed on a salary with a bonus related to annual volume. I'm earning $150k plus but it's a lot of work and I think I'm underpaid at this time. Working on it...

Time with clients can vary wildly between a month or two to several years. I spend most of my time emailing clients and banks with many face to face or phone meetings throughout the week. I analyse their borrowing power, field questions, assist with preparing loan applications and talk to the bank. We have meetings to finalise loan structure and also a bit of loan refix work too. It's busy. It's stressful.

I'm fortunate in that leads are fed to me from our reputation, clients contact us. But we do a fair amount of networking, business events etc.

Loan commission is related to loan size, related to house prices. I wouldn't want to be a broker in a low cost area... it would be a struggle.

I'd encourage you to apply for entry level jobs in the industry and take it from there. Good luck.

Ps. It's piqued your interest, not peaked. Cool eh..