As Australia’s largest broker network, LMG has a diverse make-up of nationalities across the nation.
In fact, more than 250 brokers within LMG can speak confidently in two or more languages. More than 130 nations make up our brokers’ countries of birth - everywhere from China to Canada, South Africa to Sudan.
Our diversity makes us more accessible to a national marketplace where almost a third of the population was born overseas, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Across Australia, we have many brokers making a difference in our multicultural markets.
This week, two LMG brokers - Perth’s Balpreet Singh Bal from Loan Market Bal & Associates along with Melbourne’s Varun Goyal from Trusted Financial Advice - received the honours of being named finalists in the India-Australia Business and Community Alliance awards. Both were named finalists in the Managing Director category in recognition of their business success, advocacy and service of the expat Indian community in Australia.
Mr Goyal said clients of Indian heritage naturally gravitated to him.
“Trust is a very important factor in doing business for the Indian community,” he said. “I have a lot of interstate clients come to me because they’ve been recommended to me by one of their Indian friends in Melbourne who I’ve done work with.”
Mr Goyal said understanding cultural nuances was another reason Indian clients sought him out for his services.
“Indian clients are looking for larger houses because they live in multi-generational households,” he said. “Anyone can write a loan. I always seek to go above and beyond by helping the client understand their budget and how that will affect their purchase. They may want a particular suburb, but that may restrict them to buying a one-bedroom unit.
“I’ll help them understand what markets are best for their lifestyle needs and follow through with them on the journey.”
Mr Bal speaks multiple languages - Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu, in addition to English.
About 60% of his clients are of Indian heritage.
“Buying property is often the biggest decision someone makes, so they want to have the confidence to discuss the process in their first language,” said Mr Bal, who was last year named Loan Market’s Top International Broker.