Profile
“We have big ambitions for our recruitment program to have an even broader impact on the industry”
Darren Liu,
Loan Street
Founded in 2015, Mortgage Channel was established by Michael Xia after being inspired by his own mortgage broker and mentor, Rolf Latham.
With his guidance, Xia was able to build a large property portfolio and later quit his corporate job in market research. Following his passion in property, Xia dedicated his efforts to helping other investors generate passive income and achieving financial freedom through property investing. Today, he owns 39 residential and commercial investment properties across NSW, QLD and WA.
Xia takes a holistic approach to client relationships. Applying both his professional expertise and personal property investment experience, he empowers his clients with knowledge and helps select and structure their loans to achieve their goals. Today, he has an industry reputation as “the investors’ broker” and is considered a go-to source for up-to-date information on investment loans.
He had a standout year in 2022, with Mortgage Channel lifting its total settlement amount by over $100m from $80.4m in FY21 to $187.8m in FY22. Whilst he enjoyed the challenge, he responds that the word ‘manic’ came to mind when describing the lending market for that period.
“Record low interest rates, increasing property markets across the board – it was a struggle for the majority of the year to keep up with enquiries,” says Xia.
It was a major challenge dealing with the volume of work and simultaneously re-engineering the backend of the business to be able to cope – a case of flying the airplane while you are building it.
“We just needed a more efficient backend to process the loan applications,” he says.
“We increased our staff count from four to six loan processors to keep up with demand.”
Remarkably, Xia does little in the way of marketing and relies mainly on word of mouth to generate referrals. The firm has a stellar reputation with over 150 5-star reviews on Google and Facebook.
“Reading these reviews, you get a sense of how we have changed people’s lives,” he says.
Making a real difference to people in their quest for financial security is a key motivator for Xia and the thing he enjoys most about being a mortgage broker.
“Mapping out their investment journey, showing them what they can achieve and seeing them achieve this is incredibly rewarding.”
His efforts to help others doesn’t stop at customers. He also mentors a number of other successful mortgage brokers at other firms, helping them achieve success with their own clients.
Like many of his peers, Xia expects the lending market to be less manic and more normal over the coming year. He plans to focus more on opportunities in the refinancing market for investors looking to extract equity when opportunities arise.
In a way, respite from an endless deluge of enquiries will be a welcome opportunity to recalibrate his staff for the new environment.
“For the company, it will be a great time to focus on training and upskilling the entire team.”
Beyond business, Xia is looking forward to having more time to devote to his personal life, having been blessed with his second child in the last year, something that was difficult to do with the work demands of 2022.
East Crescent Street, Lavender Bay
0423255525
michael@mortgagechannel.com.au
linkedin.com/in/michael-xia-55a2534b
mortgagechannel.com.au
Michael Xia
Founder and Mortgage Broker
Mortgage Channel
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Bio
Milestones
2022
2019–2020
2018
2017
2015
2021–present
Insurance Business Magazine | Key Media
Choice Aggregation Top 3 Finalist for Loan Volume and Submission
Choice Platinum Achiever
2022: Recognised as one of MPA’s Top 100 Brokers
2023: The Adviser Best Residential Mortgage Broker Finalist
2021–present
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2019–2020
Human Resources Magazine | key media
Choice Platinum Achiever
2019–2020
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2018
Human Resources Magazine | key media
Recognised as one of MPA’s Top 100 Brokers
Choice Platinum Achiever
2018
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2017
Human Resources Magazine | key media
Named as one of MPA’s Young Guns
Won MFAA National Excellence Award
TheAdviser, Finalist for National Newcomer of the Year
Choice Platinum Achiever
2017
1997
2015
human resources | key media
Founded Mortgage Channel
2015
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Milestones
2021–present
Insurance Business Magazine | Key Media
2022
Excellence awardee – Independent Mortgage Adviser of the Year category at the New Zealand Mortgage Awards
2022
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“We have big ambitions for our recruitment program to have an even broader impact on the industry,” says Liu.
Liu also positioned My Home Loans more towards the alternative lending market as the economy cooled off from the excesses of the pandemic years and inflation took hold.
“We saw a growing demand for alternative financing solutions in the market which was not yet explored and decided to introduce our range of non-bank lending products.”
“Our focus is on providing more options,” he explains.
“They might not be the cheapest but can be options [that] our customers would understand and appreciate as a better fit for their circumstances.”
Liu has several new projects in the works too, designed to build further efficiencies into the lending ecosystem.
“We are developing a credit engine system to ensure all customer transactions are processed quickly and efficiently. Aside from that, we are also building a distribution channel with our internal team, to allow for a smooth delivery of our products and services to customers,” he says.
“By bringing these integrations to our system, brokers and customers will be able to fully benefit from our entire borrowing experience, without experiencing any bottlenecks.”
“We are creating the technology that will allow us to achieve substantial growth in volume.”
If you want to know what the future of lending might look like, you would be wise to pay close attention to any project that Liu is involved in.
“Innovation is a necessary ingredient in our industry. There needs to be a better system and process, constructed as soon as possible,” says Liu.
“We are developing a credit engine system to ensure all customer transactions are processed quickly and efficiently”
Darren Liu,
Loan Street