Mortgage Broker and Founder of Blackk

Bachelor Commerce (Finance), Certificate IV Financial Services (Finance/Mortgage Broking)

Do you remember playing monopoly as a kid with your siblings and friends? Did you find that the same person was always the banker? And does that person work with money and numbers today?

Well, I was that kid. I’ve fortunately been able to combine my love of property AND finance in my career as a mortgage broker. I bought my first home at age 22 and I’ve since bought 12 properties. As a result, I have a lot of personal experience from being in the same situations I see my clients face every day.

Property and money are two things I’ve really focused on since I was young. When I turned 13, my dad bought me a second-hand copy of the book More Money with Noel Whittaker, which is where my obsession with property (and monopoly) started.

I was totally engrossed by the stories and simple solutions toward money and investing. After that I was hooked and my library includes hundreds of books, newsletters, and blogs on finance, economics, investing and buying property.

After finishing high school in Alstonville, NSW, I moved to the big smoke, Brisbane, to study a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Queensland. Towards the end of my studies, I bought my first property: a two-bedroom post war ‘fixer-upper’ in Mount Gravatt.

Like many people I bought it with family – my parents and younger brother Simon all owned a share. Together we renovated, painted, replaced the kitchen and landscaped to improve the little home’s rental return. I saved hard for my share of the deposit, working as a farm labourer – often starting at sunrise and working till sunset – six-days a week. I can still remember the satisfaction I felt seeing my savings grow: first by $200, then $500 and then $1000. Today I get a real buzz watching our clients who do the same. They start with a dream and then work hard to make it happen.

Over the years, I’ve continued my love of property, buying and selling homes around Brisbane. After enjoying a successful career in finance, it was a natural next step to get my mortgage brokering qualifications. It allowed me to start sharing my expertise on how to choose a home loan and what pitfalls to avoid. I started out just helping friends with their loans. This quickly turned into friends-of-friends and snowballed into helping thousands of clients from various backgrounds and walks of life.

Unfortunately, I’ve also seen the stress and financial hardship some people go through because of poor advice at the hands of others in the industry. I realised it was very rare for people to actually talk about or educate others regarding money – neither at school nor university. No-one explains how money works: how to save, why you should save, how loans work or how to use your money effectively to improve your financial future. This means that from a young age we just aren’t educated about money or investments.

This leaves us open to making poor financial decisions that can have a big impact on our lives – not because of deliberate choices that we make but more as a result of not knowing our options.

So I Now Have a Clear Mission. I want to see you progress towards paying off your home and watching your bank balances grow. I do this by giving you a plan to pay your home loan off sooner. I teach you better money management and give you a mortgage education, which is critical if you want to grow your wealth through property.