Top 100 CEO Interviews
Issue No. 25 - October/November 2005
Top 100 Triumph in Lewis tragedy
Bernie Lewis Home Loans is South Australia’s largest independently owned mortgage broker.
Under the guidance of founder, the late Bernie Lewis, the firm was among the first in the nation to meet the needs of home loan borrowers with a wide choice of low cost, low interest products.
Bernie Lewis offers more than 400 different loan products from more than 30 financiers including banks, building societies, credit unions, friendly societies and non-bank lenders. The lenders visit clients’ home or office.
CEO, Mark Lewis is surprisingly upbeat for someone heavily engaged in a market that’s evidently slowing down.
Mark says it has been a record year for settlements, up 10% on 2003-04. “We thought that was the top of the market,” he says.
He believes Bernie Lewis has picked up market share, despite the housing market shrinking nationally, because South Australia’s home industry is still “chugging along” in its famously non-volatile way.
An objective has been to build brand recognition and presence in the home loan market and the firm has made substantial reinvestment in marketing to achieve that.
“The Reserve Bank has done a pretty good job on interest rates, despite shooting from the hip in March,” Mark says. “GDP is rising, which suggests (the rate hike) was not needed, but it didn’t have much impact on the market.
“It made people draw breath, but didn’t slow them down much.”
The most important development was investors bailing out of the property market — seemingly not a bad thing.
“Property yields dropped and the sharemarket was doing well — investors found alternatives to property.
“That has taken some of the craziness out of the market and let the owner-occupiers and first home buyers back in.”
Mark describes as “ugly craziness” the instances of homes getting three offers at the first open inspection.
“First home buyer...
