Peter Ellis of Century 21 Home Loans is on the 5th place of the MPA Top 100 brokers of 2016.
5 PETER ELLIS
Century 21 Home Loans
Sydney, NSW
Aggregator: AFG
Total value of residential loans FY2015/16: $172,617,259
Total number of residential loans FY2015/16: 214
It’s taken Peter Ellis a decade to get back to fifth place, but he’s done it. One of the longest-standing Top 100 brokers, Ellis runs two businesses – his Century 21 broking franchise, using referrals from the real estate group, and Ellis Financial, for other business – along with part-owners Russell and Libby, who he’s worked with for 10 years. This year saw a major change: taking on a new, salaried support staff member, Irene, resulting in a $25m jump in volumes.
“Adding another member to the team allowed me to build our referral network and concentrate on growing the business,” Ellis explains. “That was the key: just adding one member.” Getting that extra capacity was crucial for Ellis as he not only writes loans but also trains up new-to-industry brokers who sit in Century 21’s offices. “I think if I wasn’t training, we could have got to $200m. But the long-term goal is for other brokers working here to get traction within the network, and it’s too big for me individually.”
Changing regulation has moved the goalposts, Ellis believes, and made having support staff more important than ever. “When I first started I remember a broker could do the whole lot and write significant volume.” Indeed Ellis wrote $86m without support staff before the NCCP changed everything. “When that compliance came in our volumes dropped by 30% ... it took us 12 months to recover and get the right processes in place.” Today a broker working extremely long hours by themselves could manage around $50m, Ellis estimates, depending on their location and average loan size.
After years of working with a tight-knit team, Ellis now sees a bigger team as a prerequisite to further expansion. “We want to have the existing people in place so I can go out there and have confidence that when I bring the business in we’ll be able to cope with it. We’ve been under-resourced for a long period of time and it came to the point where I did need to put some salaried staff on to really grow. And I think our results hopefully should be stronger next year.”
Century 21 Home Loans
Sydney, NSW
Aggregator: AFG
Total value of residential loans FY2015/16: $172,617,259
Total number of residential loans FY2015/16: 214
It’s taken Peter Ellis a decade to get back to fifth place, but he’s done it. One of the longest-standing Top 100 brokers, Ellis runs two businesses – his Century 21 broking franchise, using referrals from the real estate group, and Ellis Financial, for other business – along with part-owners Russell and Libby, who he’s worked with for 10 years. This year saw a major change: taking on a new, salaried support staff member, Irene, resulting in a $25m jump in volumes.
“Adding another member to the team allowed me to build our referral network and concentrate on growing the business,” Ellis explains. “That was the key: just adding one member.” Getting that extra capacity was crucial for Ellis as he not only writes loans but also trains up new-to-industry brokers who sit in Century 21’s offices. “I think if I wasn’t training, we could have got to $200m. But the long-term goal is for other brokers working here to get traction within the network, and it’s too big for me individually.”
Changing regulation has moved the goalposts, Ellis believes, and made having support staff more important than ever. “When I first started I remember a broker could do the whole lot and write significant volume.” Indeed Ellis wrote $86m without support staff before the NCCP changed everything. “When that compliance came in our volumes dropped by 30% ... it took us 12 months to recover and get the right processes in place.” Today a broker working extremely long hours by themselves could manage around $50m, Ellis estimates, depending on their location and average loan size.
After years of working with a tight-knit team, Ellis now sees a bigger team as a prerequisite to further expansion. “We want to have the existing people in place so I can go out there and have confidence that when I bring the business in we’ll be able to cope with it. We’ve been under-resourced for a long period of time and it came to the point where I did need to put some salaried staff on to really grow. And I think our results hopefully should be stronger next year.”
