Open houses and cookies make up this broker’s weekend

They gave her an account worth over $9m

Open houses and cookies make up this broker’s weekend

They’re usually spent going to the park or sleeping in, but for All R Loans director and 2017 MPA Top 100 Brokers finalist Rooma Nanda, Saturdays are normally for visiting open houses in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs to scan high-end properties above $3m for her high-net worth, pre-approved clients.

Nanda told MPA she does the free service, which began in early 2016, for three reasons:

  1. She likes to assist very busy high-net worth clients who lack time to visit properties on weekends to window shop even though some of them have buyers’ agents;
  2. She gets to meet open house agents; and
  3. As her team gets paid only after a loan settles, the effort helps with the loan’s progression and it makes clients feel connected to them.

Nanda added that by scanning open houses, she creates “great relationships” with top end agents looking for buyers.        

After a while, Nanda started doing open houses with a couple of agents and had began setting up a small table outside the properties with nicely packed fresh cookies laid out on top of it for visitors to enjoy.

The cookie bags bear an “All R Loans” company logo, and light jazz usually plays at the table to create mood. After a customer inspects the house, Nanda takes a photo of the brochure and sends it to him or her.  

“I immediately bond with visitors coming in to inspect the property as their kids love those cookies. A few times I met people working in the banking industry who thought it was a rocking idea,” she said.

The cookie idea produced several businesses for Nanda; the big accounts include a Credit Suisse executive whose loans amounted to over $9m, a big business owner in Dubai searching for a property and a business couple whose loan request reached more than $4m.

According to Nanda, customers find her activity “very helpful” and “agents always say that it’s a unique idea as they haven’t seen any other broker doing it”.

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