Mortgage brokers wrote a record 81% of all new Australian home loans in the March 2026 quarter, up from 55% in 2018. Four out of five borrowers now use one. And yet ask a first home buyer what a broker actually does between "hello" and "here are your keys" and most will shrug. This guide is the missing job description: every stage, what happens in it, how the broker gets paid for it, and the parts of the process a broker genuinely can't do for you.
Full disclosure before we start: NestPath runs a free broker-matching service, and the vetted brokers we refer people to pay us a referral fee if you use them. So we have a commercial interest in brokers, and you should read this page knowing that. What follows is the factual job description, sourced to ASIC, the industry's own data and the law, including the section on what brokers cannot do.
Last updated 23 July 2026. A mortgage broker assesses your finances, compares loans across their panel of lenders, recommends options, lodges your application and manages it through to settlement, then reviews your rate over the life of the loan. Since 1 January 2021 they have owed you a legal Best Interests Duty; banks selling direct owe you no equivalent. The lender pays the broker (typically 0.65% to 0.70% upfront plus a small ongoing trail), so standard residential broking costs you nothing directly. Brokers wrote 81% of new Australian home loans in the March 2026 quarter.
The One-Sentence Job Description
A mortgage broker is a licensed intermediary who works out what you can borrow, finds the loan that suits your situation from the lenders on their panel, and then project-manages your application from paperwork to settlement, without charging you for it in the standard case. The regulator's plain description is close to that: understand your needs, determine what you can afford, identify options, explain the costs, and manage the application through to settlement.
The Legal Duty That Changed the Job in 2021
The single most important fact about modern Australian mortgage broking is legal, not practical. Since 1 January 2021, following the banking Royal Commission, mortgage brokers have owed consumers a statutory Best Interests Duty under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, with ASIC's expectations set out in Regulatory Guide 273. In ASIC's own words when the guidance was released: "let there be no doubt, the consumer must always come first."
Concretely, the duty shapes all the stages below: the broker must gather your information properly, assess products individually against your circumstances rather than defaulting to a favourite lender, present options and recommendations with reasons, and keep records that prove they did. Where the broker's commercial interest conflicts with yours, the law requires yours to win.
Two facts give the duty its bite. It applies to brokers and not to banks: a bank staffer selling you that bank's loan owes you no equivalent duty, which is worth remembering whenever you compare a broker's recommendation with your own bank's offer. And it has teeth: the duty sits alongside a conflict-priority rule and anti-avoidance provisions in the credit law, not in a voluntary industry code.
Step by Step: What Your Broker Actually Does
Stage 1: The fact find
The first meeting (increasingly a video call) is a structured interview about you: income and work history, expenses, debts from HECS to Afterpay, savings, your deposit, your timeline and what you're actually trying to do. Expect to hand over ID, payslips and bank statements, and to authorise a credit check. It feels like paperwork; it's actually the raw material for everything that follows, and under the Best Interests Duty the broker is required to collect it properly rather than guess.
Stage 2: Borrowing capacity, lender by lender
Here's the part most people never see. There is no single answer to "how much can I borrow?", because every lender applies different rules to the same facts. HECS debt is the clean example: since the 2025 policy changes, some lenders exclude a HELP balance from serviceability entirely if it will be repaid within a year, others apply reduced buffers, and others count every dollar. The same applicant can be approved for meaningfully different amounts at different lenders, and a broker's software models your file against dozens of lender policies at once. Doing that comparison solo means building it yourself, bank by bank. You can get a first estimate from our borrowing power calculator, but the lender-by-lender spread is the broker's genuine edge.
Stage 3: The shortlist
From their panel, the broker narrows to a shortlist and must, per the regulator's guidance, present you with more than one option, with reasons tied to your situation rather than a brochure. Panels are big these days: the major aggregator platforms brokers operate through carry 60 to 75+ lenders, and an individual broker actively holds accreditations with about 23 of them on average, majors and non-banks alike. You'll see the recommendation and the reasoning in writing, along with exactly what the broker will be paid, in a document called the Credit Proposal Disclosure.
Stage 4: Pre-approval, lodged and chased
The broker packages your application to the chosen lender's requirements and lodges it electronically through the industry's application platform, then manages what comes back: valuation orders, requests for more documents, conditions to clear. If the valuation comes in low or the lender balks at something, it's the broker's job to argue it, restructure it or move the application to plan B. Our pre-approval guide covers what the lender is doing on their side of the fence.
Stage 5: Contract to keys
Once you've signed a contract, the broker converts pre-approval to full approval and coordinates with the other professional in your corner, your conveyancer, so that formal approval, loan documents and settlement funds all land before the contract deadlines. The broker doesn't do the legal work, but a good one is the reason the finance side doesn't become the thing that blows your settlement date.
Stage 6: After settlement (the part nobody expects)
The job doesn't end at the keys. Because brokers earn a small ongoing trail commission while your loan stays healthy, the good ones treat you as a client for the life of the loan: an annual rate check, and a repricing call to your lender when your rate drifts above what new customers get. This is measurable, not marketing: industry analysis of broker repricing events found an average rate reduction of 0.46% when brokers went back to lenders, and the industry's 2025 research found 96% of brokers maintain at least annual contact with clients. If your broker goes quiet after settlement, you're entitled to expect better.
How Brokers Get Paid (and What It Costs You)
The lender pays the broker, not you. The standard structure in 2026: an upfront commission of roughly 0.65% to 0.70% of the loan (plus GST) when it settles, and a trail of roughly 0.15% to 0.20% a year on the remaining balance. On a $600,000 loan that's about $4,000 upfront and around $1,000 a year of trail, paid by the lender out of their margin. For a standard residential loan you pay the broker nothing directly, and any fee a broker does want to charge must be quoted to you in writing before you commit.
Two consumer protections worth knowing. Every dollar of commission must be disclosed to you in the Credit Proposal Disclosure document, so you can see precisely what the broker earns from your file. And while lenders claw back commissions if a loan is discharged early (typically 100% in the first year, about half in the second), the law explicitly prohibits passing that clawback cost on to you; it's capped at two years and it is the broker's cost, not yours.
The honest tension in this model: the broker is paid by the side they're comparing on your behalf. That's exactly why the Best Interests Duty and the conflict-priority rule exist, and why commissions are disclosed. It's also why loan size doesn't change the calculus much: percentage commissions are near-identical across lenders, which blunts the incentive to steer you to one bank over another, though not the incentive to prefer a bigger loan, which is worth keeping your own counsel on.
What a Broker Can't Do
- Cover the whole market. "We compare dozens of lenders" means their panel, not every lender in Australia. Some online-only lenders sell direct and don't work with brokers at all (CBA's Unloan is the cleanest example, and Athena is another). A broker's shortlist is drawn from a big pool, but it is a pool with edges.
- Do the legal work. Contract review, searches and the transfer at settlement belong to your conveyancer or solicitor. You need both professionals; they do different jobs and coordinate constantly in the final weeks.
- Give you financial advice. Broking is "credit assistance" under credit law, a different licence and regime from financial advice. Whether to buy, how much of your money to commit, how a property fits your bigger financial picture: those calls are yours, or a licensed adviser's.
- Guarantee an approval. A broker maximises your chances by matching your file to the right lender's appetite. The lender still says yes or no.
Broker vs Going Direct: The Structural Difference
This page is the job description, not the sales pitch, and the decision deserves its own guide, which we've written: should you use a mortgage broker? The structural difference is simple enough to state here: a bank's lender can only sell that bank's products and owes you no best-interests duty; a broker compares across a panel and is legally bound to put your interests first. Four in five new Australian home loans now go through the second door, and that number has risen almost every year since the duty arrived.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a mortgage broker do exactly?
A broker assesses your income, expenses and deposit, models your borrowing capacity across the lenders on their panel, recommends loan options with written reasons, lodges your application, manages valuations and approval conditions, coordinates with your conveyancer to settlement, and then reviews your rate periodically over the life of the loan. Since January 2021 they have been legally required to act in your best interests.
How do mortgage brokers get paid?
By the lender, once your loan settles: typically an upfront commission of 0.65% to 0.70% of the loan plus GST, and a trail of about 0.15% to 0.20% a year on the outstanding balance. The exact dollar amounts must be disclosed to you in the Credit Proposal Disclosure document before you proceed.
Do you pay a mortgage broker?
Generally no. For a standard residential home loan the lender pays the broker's commission and you pay nothing directly. Any fee a broker wants to charge you must be quoted in writing before providing the service. And if a loan is discharged early and the lender claws back commission, the law prohibits passing that cost to you.
Are mortgage brokers legally required to act in your best interest?
Yes. Since 1 January 2021, mortgage brokers have owed consumers a statutory Best Interests Duty under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, with ASIC's guidance in Regulatory Guide 273. Where the broker's interests conflict with yours, the law requires yours to be given priority. Banks selling their own loans directly owe no equivalent duty.
Can a mortgage broker access every lender?
No. Brokers recommend from their panel: the big aggregator platforms carry 60 to 75+ lenders and an individual broker actively holds accreditations with about 23 on average. Some online-only lenders, such as CBA's Unloan, sell only direct and aren't available through any broker. A broker covers a large slice of the market, not all of it.
What percentage of home loans go through brokers?
A record 81% of new Australian residential home loans were written by mortgage brokers in the March 2026 quarter, per the MFAA's quarterly market share data, up from around 55% in 2018. Broker share has risen almost every year since the Best Interests Duty took effect in 2021.
If you want the matching done for you, NestPath's free broker-matching service connects you with a vetted broker licensed in your state; the broker pays us a referral fee if you proceed, you pay nothing, and there's no obligation. Prefer to keep reading first? Start with whether a broker is right for you and how to choose one. This page is general information, not personal financial or credit advice.
