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For Sebastian Watkins, CEO, COO, and co-founder of Aussie and Lendi, the answer is a radical reinvention of the entire home buying journey.
In an upcoming podcast with Broker Daily, Watkins outlined a bold vision to transform the trusted Aussie brand from a premier mortgage brokerage into a comprehensive platform where Australians can “find, buy, and own” property.
The problem: A fragmented, complicated process
Watkins pinpointed the core issue for home buyers today: fragmentation.
“You’re traversing four or five different experiences and relationships and brands at a minimum,” he said.
A prospective buyer must typically engage with:
- A property portal
- A mortgage broker or bank
- A conveyancer
- A real estate agent
“Cobbling that all together is not impossible, but it’s not the prettiest of scenarios,” said Watkins.
This juggling act of emails, phone calls, and different platforms often leads to confusion and frustration when responsibilities are unclear.
The solution: One brand, one seamless experience
Aussie’s “next chapter” is about bringing these elements into a single, cohesive ecosystem. The goal is to create an experience so seamless that customers wouldn’t consider doing it any other way.
“You can stay in the same experience with the same brand. You can move from your pre approval into your search, you can tag and share properties with your broker, with your real estate agent, you’ve got the conveyancer in there, you’ve got tri party or multi-party chats happening,” Watkins explained.
“You’ve got the contractor sale coming into the one spot, you’re doing your ID once there’s a single platform across all the communication. So, you’re not bouncing in and out of emails and WhatsApp and messages with different people. And quite often as we know, one person points the finger to the other person when something goes wrong. It all sits in one experience.”
With broker market share plateauing at a dominant level, Watkins believes that “just being a good broker is probably not enough to future-proof our business.”
The engine room: AI for speed, humans for trust
Helping make this ambition a reality is a deep investment in technology, particularly AI. However, Watkins was quick to dismiss the concern that AI will replace the human broker.
Part of Aussie’s proposition is “keeping home loans human,” said Watkins. The strategy is to use “AI for speed and scale, humans for complexity and trust.”
Watkins envisions an “AI-native” business where intelligent agents handle administrative tasks, such as document collection, updates, and initial fact-finding, to free up brokers to focus on high-value, relationship-driven work.
“Ultimately, it’s a capacity unlock, not necessarily a redundancy play,” he said.
“If you can save an hour per file, you’re doing 15 or 20 files a month, there’s 20 hours a week back in your day. That’s half a week on a 40-hour week.”
One thing is certain for Aussie: the 33-year-old brand is not standing still. Watkins and his team are betting big on a future where finding, buying, and owning a home is a simple experience.
[Related: Aussie transforms to offer holistic property experience]
