Australia’s largest brokerage focuses on Qld

Aussie Home Loans opened eight new stores across Queensland in the last year and has said that there are "more planned in the current financial year".

The eight new stores are located in Cleveland, Moorooka, Everton Park, Bulimba, West End, Nambour, Mermaid Waters and Springfield Lakes, taking the current number of Aussie stores in the state to 45.

According to the brokerage, the focus on the region follows on from a rise in Aussie stores' provision of home loans to $3.61 billion to Queensland and Northern Territory customers.

The brokerage has said it has more store openings planned for the current financial year, with the new stores expected to generate $320 million in home loan settlements in 2016-17.

“We are building momentum in the Queensland market and crucial to our expansion is a strong retail presence with our Aussie stores," said Aussie chief executive James Symond.

“The key to our growth in the state is having a strong retail footprint in high-profile locations, with our focus for growth in the new financial year to be Noosa, Kawana and Buderim, while we are looking to expand our presence in Cairns, Brisbane, Toowong and Oxley.”

Earlier this year, the mortgage brokerage announced record financial results, which showed that the company settled $22 billion worth of loans in the year 2015/16, including over $3.5 billion by Aussie's wholesale mortgage aggregator nMB.

“There was literally no part of the business that wasn't enhanced over the past 12 months," said Mr Symond.

"We expanded and strengthened our product range, invested heavily in IT infrastructure, brought our customer contact centre in-house, moved to world-class headquarters at Grosvenor Place and continued to provide our brokers with exceptional training and events. It’s been a big 12 months.

“Despite some headwinds in overseas markets and a more subdued property market in Australia, we have hit the ground running in the new financial year and expect to post another record result this financial year."