Specialist lenders underutilised: poll

Of the poll's 108 respondents, 22.2 per cent said they do not use specialist lenders, while a majority (77.8 per cent) did.

Pepper Australia director of sales and distribution Mario Rehayem said brokers are often misled into thinking that specialist lending is solely about ‘bad credit’.

“This reputation dates back to when specialist lenders were considered only as lenders of last resort, which may have been the case seven or so years ago,” Mr Rehayem told Mortgage Business' sister publication The Adviser.

“Specialist loans are in more demand than ever before, for a range of reasons: the tighter credit policies; the need for alternative income verification to allow a genuine self-employed borrower a crack at the housing market; and to allow a borrower to consolidate their debts to increase their cash flow,” he said.

“And let’s not shy away from the fact that there are many clients that have endured a life event, such as divorce, sickness or loss of employment, which forced their hand to enter into hardship, resulting in credit impairment.”

Pepper clients with some form of credit impairment only represent 40 per cent of the lender's business, Mr Rehayem said.

“I’d argue that the banks will attract at least 10 per cent of credit-impaired clients,” he said.

“We are proud to provide solutions for these borrowers who are credit-worthy – specialist lending is not taboo.”