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Australia’s leading mortgage brokerages prove that operational depth beats market conditions. Collectively settling $41.2 billion – a 38.6% surge on the prior year – the MPA Top 50 show what separates firms that build through hard cycles from those that merely ride the tailwind. This report ranks the country’s best mortgage brokerages, profiles their leaders and maps the market forces shaping the year ahead.
When the Reserve Bank cut rates for the third time in 2025, Australia’s best mortgage brokerages barely flinched. The phones ran hot, the pipeline filled and the files kept moving. Two years of rate hikes and compressed volumes had not slowed these firms down. They had used the time to build.
The result was $41.2 billion in settlements across 50 brokerages, a 38.6% surge on the prior year and the strongest performance this ranking has ever recorded, according to MPA’s verified submissions data. Sixteen firms crossed $1 billion for the year against a combined loan book of $102.1 billion. The numbers are striking, but what produced them is more interesting.
These firms absorbed 13 rate hikes across an 18-month tightening cycle, held their conversion rates while volumes contracted across the broader market, and then delivered at scale when conditions finally turned.
Broker market share reached a record 77.6% in the June 2025 quarter before settling at 76.7% by December, the highest end-of-year figure the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) has ever recorded, according to its quarterly market share data compiled by Cotality.
By March 2026, the average mortgage size had grown to $735,000, up more than $75,000 on the same time the previous year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Lending Indicators released on 13 May 2026.
FBAA chief development officer Joanna James, based in Brisbane, says the brokerages gaining ground are the ones using technology to strengthen client engagement rather than dilute it.
MFAA chief executive officer Anja Pannek says the brokerages separating themselves in 2026 are doing far more than writing volume.
That distinction matters more in 2026 than it did a year ago. The RBA has already reversed course, hiking in February, March and May 2026, and returning the cash rate to 4.35%. The conditions that drove last year’s record results have changed.
James argues workflow automation and cybersecurity are increasingly becoming baseline operational requirements rather than competitive advantages on their own. Pannek says the environment is forcing leading firms to become more deliberate in how they operate.
“As the market becomes more complex, the broker proposition becomes more relevant, not less,” she says. “Brokerages that can combine trusted advice-style guidance within the appropriate credit framework, strong lender and lending knowledge, efficient processes and long-term client engagement will be well placed to grow sustainably.”
The firms featured in this report have already shown they know how to perform when conditions are hard. Years of investment in systems, process control and client retention are what produced 2025’s record results. The average conversion rate across the cohort was 82.8%, with the strongest performers staying above 90% through a year of extraordinary volume pressure.
“Businesses that rely too heavily on individual effort without the right infrastructure will find it harder to grow,” adds Pannek.
To identify them, MPA invited Australian brokerages to submit verified figures covering the full 2025 calendar year, with each applicant providing total settlements, loan book value and conversion rate. Aggregators confirmed every submission. From a field of 111 entries, a brokerage needed at least five loan writers operating from a single Australian office to be eligible. The final ranking combined performance scores across all three metrics to produce the tally.
Sponsored by Bankwest, MPA’s Top Brokerages 2026 is the definitive ranking of Australia’s highest-performing mortgage brokerages. This report takes a closer look at four of the best mortgage brokerages in Australia, each one a window into the mindset, structure and daily discipline that separates the brokerages on this list from the rest of the market.
All figures from MPA's verified 2025 calendar year cohort of 50 brokerages. External market data sourced from MFAA, ABS, RBA, Cotality and IBISWorld.
Rethink Financing principal Son Pham has a BDM who calls him ‘Mr. Exception’. He takes it as a compliment.
That nickname captures something essential about how Rethink Financing operates. Where other brokerages submit deals and wait, Pham workshops every file before it goes anywhere near a lender. He talks to credit before lodging. He maps lender policy against client circumstances before a single inquiry hits the client’s file. And when a lender’s standard policy does not quite fit, he makes the case for why it should be set aside.
Ranked in the top 10 brokerages in the country, with a conversion rate of 88% sitting well above the cohort average, Rethink Financing earned its place among a small group of firms that have crossed the billion-dollar settlement threshold. Pham did not set out to reach that number. He explains, “I didn’t get into the business saying I wanted to write a billion dollars. I guess it just happened over time.”
The approach was shaped partly by watching what bad practice looked like. Pham recalls taking on a client whose file arrived carrying credit enquiries from five or six lenders, all within the same period. The previous broker had submitted the deal everywhere and hoped something would stick. “That broker just killed their credit enquiries. They didn’t workshop the deal enough. They didn’t know lender policy. They didn’t ask the right questions before they submitted,” he says.
The damage that kind of approach causes is not just reputational. By the time a deal reaches a fifth lender with that enquiry history on file, underwriters start asking whether there was something wrong that the others already found. The scrutiny compounds.
Pham’s method is the inverse. He pressure-tests every scenario before formalising anything, treating pre-submission preparation the way a credit assessor would. A client earning $100,000 a year sounds straightforward until you discover the income is earned in Singapore and denominated in US dollars, which triggers expat lending policy, which then prohibits interest-only lending and requires principal and interest instead.
He is equally disciplined about when to push and when to walk away. The firm’s weekly Tuesday meetings run on the same principle. Pham buys lunch, the team gathers in the boardroom, and the agenda is built around the deals that are proving difficult rather than the ones that have already settled. With around 15 active brokers, those sessions surface collective knowledge quickly.
The culture is deliberate and grounded in something personal. Pham comes from a background where family meals and shared time are central, and he has built the same rhythm into the business. Tuesday lunch in the boardroom is part of it. So are the social events – soccer and go-karting – because Pham believes the professional and the personal are not easily separated in a business built on trust.
That culture was tested through 2025, Rethink’s biggest year on record. Pham hired brokers and support staff early, anticipating the demand that rate cuts would release. Everyone at Rethink must arrive with a solid residential lending background.
“I want to make sure I bring on the right people, train them, have the right culture and grow that way,” says Pham. The major banks will not accredit a writer as a commercial broker on residential experience alone. They need to have been at Rethink for roughly two years and written commercial deals before the accreditation application is even considered.
Development finance and asset finance are next on the agenda. Development finance drives enormous settlement volumes for some of the biggest commercial players in the country, and Pham sees it as a significant opportunity.
Most brokerages are approaching 2026 with caution. Freedom Investment Lending is approaching it with anticipation. Rates are rising and the broader market is tightening, but this firm has never built its success around favourable conditions. It has built it around something more durable.
The firm is among a select group of Australia’s top brokerages that settled over a billion dollars in 2025, a milestone that felt ahead of schedule even to those inside the business. Its strongest single year of growth – a 63% surge – came in 2022 when the RBA was hiking rates and much of the market was bracing for contraction. It has delivered at least double-digit growth every year since.
Freedom operates in a deliberately narrow space. Around 80% of its lending is for brand new, off-the-plan investment properties. New properties carry tax advantages, typically generate higher rental yields, require less maintenance and are generally easier to hold while they grow in value.
The firm’s writers carry the internal title of investment lending managers rather than brokers. They are property wealth specialists, and their job begins well before a loan application is in sight. Someone who comes to Freedom arrives with a goal – whether financial freedom, a passive income target or a portfolio they want to build over time – Freedom’s job is to map out what is achievable and construct a plan around it.
That upfront work involves a detailed financial assessment of income, assets, liabilities and purchasing power, not just now but projected forward. Some clients are not ready to purchase immediately, but Freedom maps their unique timelines, stays in contact and is ready when the window opens.
This forward-thinking approach is reinforced by the firm’s sister business, Freedom Property Investors, which sources and presents suitable properties to clients once the financial assessment is complete. A client who comes for lending advice ends up with a full investment plan rather than just a loan.
Twenty writers are on the books, spread across Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Adelaide, giving Freedom genuine national reach. The rate environment of 2026 does not trouble Kuru. He points back to 2022, when the RBA delivered rate rise after rate rise and Freedom went through what he describes as a period of exponential growth.
“We’re not really reliant on positive market conditions to generate success. Property is a long-term game and, over time, we’re going to have rate rises, rate decreases and everything in between,” says Kuru. “It’s all about weathering that storm and changing your approach depending on what’s happening.”
When the federal government’s 2026 budget shifted policy to encourage new investment properties over existing stock, Kuru’s response was unambiguous. “That’s our space,” he says. “It’s massively benefiting our territory.”
Managing director Katie Thomas had a view from the beginning that most brokerage principals don’t share. A smaller roster of brokers writing serious volume beats a larger one writing modest amounts and calling it a bigger business.
“I’ve never cared for the ego play of who’s got the most names on the door,” she says. The 2026 numbers bear that out. Five writers at Focus Finance settled $896 million, nearly $180 million each, almost three times what the average writer across the cohort produced.
Thomas puts it down to automation and people, working in combination. On the automation side, she has built the business around the principle that every manual touch in a process is a drag on what a good broker can produce.
“If there’s a manual touch anywhere in our process, I’ll find it and tweak it out, every little step, everywhere, all the time,” she says. Process mapping at Focus Finance is tight and runs in sequential stages, which serves a second purpose. Those stages double as a career path for the support team, so growth in the business translates into growth for the people inside it.
The support structure around the writers is designed so that brokers are never doing work that someone else in the business could do better or faster. Strategists and associates handle application shaping and file progression. Settlements support keeps deals moving cleanly through to completion. Operational leadership drives systems, compliance and continuous process improvement. Every role is built around the principle that everyone should be at their highest and best use, always.
“Our support roles are not just administrative,” she says. “They are commercially aware, technically strong and able to anticipate what is needed before it becomes a problem.” That anticipation is what gives the writers their hours back, time that goes to clients, to deal strategy and to developing the brokers coming through behind them.
What Thomas reaches for when asked what Focus Finance is most proud of is not the volume, though she does not undersell it. It is that the business has produced those results while remaining somewhere people genuinely want to work.
Growth has come through repeat clients and referrals, which she reads as evidence that what the firm delivers extends well past any single transaction. Internally, she tracks brokers and support staff gaining in confidence, skill and leadership and treats that as the more reliable signal that the model is doing what it should.
The culture she describes is high-accountability and high-performance, and also, in her own words, “deeply human”, one that has held onto its “standards, identity, heart, fun and dark humour” at national scale. That last phrase suggests a business that has thought as carefully about what it does not want to become as about what it does.
On growth, Thomas is direct. More is coming, but not at the expense of what makes the business function. Every scaling business hits the moments when systems buckle and capacity gets stretched, and she does not treat those moments as problems to be avoided.
“Every issue we solve leaves the business stronger than it was before,” she says. The approach when those moments arrive is to work through them collaboratively, stay solutions-focused and treat each one as information about what needs to be built next. The lean model is not the destination. It is the discipline that keeps quality intact as the business gets bigger.
When Focus Finance scales further, it will be because the model has been strengthened through that process, not because headcount was added and called progress.
InReach Finance does not enter many awards. The ones it does enter mean something.
That sense of pride is earned. With a team of six writers, plus general manager Dean LaFrenais himself, a loan book well into the billions and a 96% conversion rate that sits near the top of the entire 2026 cohort, InReach has built something that most brokerages with far larger teams have not managed to replicate. LaFrenais’ explanation is disarmingly simple: “Timing is everything for us.”
Much of InReach’s work involves house and land packages, and the firm has a strong relationship with a major Perth builder. When a client wants to secure a block of land and build, the settlement timeline can stretch across many months. Rather than waiting for the client to be ready, InReach uses that time to prepare them.
LaFrenais’ view is that everyone who wants to buy a house is a potential InReach client. The conversion rate is not the product of turning away difficult work. It is the product of patience.
The team works on lead times, coaching and nurturing people who are not yet ready to buy, keeping the pipeline healthy and consistent rather than lurching between strong months and quiet ones.
What LaFrenais is most proud of is his team. The culture is deliberately flat. From the newest administration person to the most senior broker, everyone is treated with the same level of respect and recognised for their contribution.
The next phase of InReach is investing in social media and the first home buyer segment. LaFrenais is particularly drawn to first home buyers because the educational component of what InReach does translates naturally to people at the beginning of their property journey. He says, “The broader industry could probably take a lot away from how we interact with each other and how we actually work collaboratively to win in this marketplace.”
For most of this four-year period, billion-dollar settlement volume remained relatively rare within the top 50 cohort. Fewer than six brokerages crossed the threshold in both the 2023 and 2024 rankings. That increased to seven in 2025. In 2026, the figure jumped to 16.
The increase materially changes the scale profile of the market’s upper tier. Volume concentrated heavily among firms already operating with substantial processing capacity, established referral channels and mature internal systems. The result is a market where the largest brokerages are widening the gap faster than the rest of the field can close it.
Toggle between five metrics to explore how the cohort has changed. The 2024 contraction year is the defining data point — it reset competitive positioning for every firm that followed.
Average settlements per brokerage moved from $538 million in the 2023 cohort to $478 million in 2024 before recovering to $606 million in 2025 and reaching $823 million in 2026, according to MPA’s verified cohort data.
The top quartile average increased from $1.08 billion to $1.68 billion across the four years. The bottom quartile rose from $194 million to $292 million. The spread between the top and bottom groups remained roughly five to six times throughout the series – scale expansion lifted the entire cohort while preserving the same competitive separation.
Brokerage size has grown steadily, but output per adviser has increased at a much faster rate. Average writer numbers moved from 12.4 per brokerage in the 2024 cohort to 15.1 in 2026. Settlement volume per writer increased from $44.5 million to $64.4 million over the same period, according to MPA’s cohort data.
Top-performing firms are processing materially more volume through each adviser, reflecting improvements in file progression, support structures, lender coordination, CRM usage and workflow management. The strongest brokerages are increasing throughput without relying solely on proportional headcount growth.
Average writer numbers grew 21.8% between 2024 and 2026 — but settlement volume per writer grew 44.7% over the same period. The strongest brokerages are getting denser, not just larger.
The decline between the 2023 and 2024 cohorts remains one of the defining moments in the four-year dataset. Average settlements fell 11% year on year during the most aggressive phase of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) tightening cycle. Borrowing demand weakened, refinance activity slowed and approval timelines lengthened.
The contraction year effectively reset competitive positioning. Firms that preserved throughput, conversion performance and client retention through 2024 entered the recovery cycle with materially greater capacity to absorb renewed lending demand, which is why settlement growth accelerated so sharply in 2026.
The combined loan book across the top 50 increased from $66.2 billion in 2023 to $102.1 billion in 2026, representing growth of 54.3%, per MPA’s cohort data. Average loan book size per brokerage rose from $1.32 billion to $2.04 billion.
However, the pace of growth has moderated. Annual loan book growth slowed from roughly 19% in 2024 and 2025 to 8.4% in 2026. Once brokerages reach multibillion-dollar loan books, maintaining the same percentage growth requires substantially larger settlement volumes each year simply to maintain position within the cohort.
Average conversion recovered to 82.8% in 2026. But brokerages sustaining above 90% fell from 21 in 2023 to 14 — and held there. Complex lending structures and longer borrower decision cycles are making elite conversion harder to hold.
Average conversion across the cohort declined from 84.6% in 2023 to approximately 80% through 2024 and 2025 before recovering to 82.8% in 2026, according to MPA’s verified cohort data. In 2023, 21 brokerages reported conversion rates above 90%. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 14 and remained there in 2026.
Even in a lower-rate environment, sustaining very high conversion rates has become more difficult as lending structures grow more complex, assessment periods extend and borrower decision cycles lengthen.
The median settlement volume required to enter the top 50 moved from $417.9 million in 2023 to $644.8 million in 2026. The temporary decline to $361.1 million in 2024 reflected the contraction year. By 2026, a brokerage settling $400 million annually would not have qualified for the ranking.
Three RBA cuts in February, May and August 2025 took the cash rate from 4.35% down to 3.60%, releasing pent-up borrower demand and driving settlement volumes to levels that now define this ranking. Then, before the ink dried on those results, the RBA reversed course, hiking in February, March, and again in May 2026, returning the cash rate to 4.35%.
Pannek says the changing environment is reinforcing the broker channel’s role rather than weakening it.
Three RBA cuts in February, May and August 2025 released pent-up demand. The RBA reversed course in 2026, hiking in February, March and May — returning the cash rate to 4.35% and fully reversing all 2025 easing.
Mortgage brokers facilitated 76.7% of all new residential home loans in the December 2025 quarter, the highest December market share on record since the MFAA began tracking quarterly data in 2013, according to MFAA data compiled by Cotality. In value terms, brokers settled $142.2 billion in new home loans over that quarter alone, up 23.6% on the same period in 2024.
The channel’s dominance peaked at 77.6% in June 2025 before easing slightly through the second half of the year. The trajectory across the full measurement period is unambiguous: borrowers continued to move toward brokers as product complexity grew and lender appetite shifted.
Rising property values amplified every settlement figure in this report. The national median dwelling value reached $922,838 by late February 2026, up 9.9% year on year, according to Cotality’s Home Value Index. Average owner-occupier mortgage size hit $735,000 in March 2026, a $75,000 increase on the same month in 2025, according to ABS Lending Indicators. That appreciation inflated loan book values and lifted settlement dollar volumes across the board.
Mortgage brokerage revenue reached $6.2 billion in 2026 after growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6% between 2020 and 2025, data from IBISWorld shows. That growth, however, has been running behind the broader mortgage market, which expanded at a CAGR of 14.1% over a comparable period, according to IBISWorld. Margin discipline, conversion efficiency and operating scale are becoming increasingly important as cost structures rise.
The national average owner-occupier mortgage reached $735,000 in March 2026 — up $75,000 year-on-year. NSW leads all states at $860,000. These rising loan sizes inflated settlement dollar volumes independently of volume growth.
Conversion is becoming a more important performance metric as the lending cycle tightens again. The ABS Lending Indicators for the March 2026 quarter, released 13 May 2026, showed the value of total new home loan commitments fell 3.8% in the quarter to $103 billion, the first meaningful pullback after strong 2025 growth. New investor loan commitments fell 5.3% over the same period.
The 2025 operating environment delivered record volumes and a compliance challenge that moved from industry conversation to mainstream scrutiny simultaneously. A multibillion-dollar mortgage fraud investigation, centred on falsified documentation passed through referrer and introducer networks, drew calls from the FBAA to dismantle bank introducer programs entirely and prompted aggregators to demand better data-sharing mechanisms with lenders.
The concerns focus on money laundering, specifically criminals using AI-generated false income and employment documentation to obtain loans. While broker involvement appears limited, the episode accelerated documentation and verification requirements across the channel.
The Essential Eight is the Australian Signals Directorate’s baseline cybersecurity mitigation framework. James’ point is that for brokerages now handling AI-assisted workflows alongside heightened documentation scrutiny, operating without a clear internal AI governance policy is itself a risk position.
“It’s very important that while AI is going to bring incredible efficiencies, top brokerages are going to be very clear on which programs they use and why, and which ones they don’t and why, and how to do so in a way that makes sure their businesses are safe,” adds James.
What Australia’s leading broking voices say about the operational, technological and strategic decisions reshaping high-performance brokerages in a more competitive lending market.
Service is really a form of communication. It is about having clear and valuable communication with your clients, understanding the opportunities for them maybe one step ahead of when they know they need it, and being able to be proactive rather than reactive with your client base. It is also about offering a whole-of-loan experience. Whether that is helping clients with their car loan, their self-managed super, restructuring their business cash flow so the business can expand, the top brokerages will be proactive with solutions and will be seen as a trusted person that consumers can go to about a variety of needs. That might also mean referring clients on to people who can help with insurance and other products, making sure their whole financial picture is sound. The broker is not the only one in the equation. They are one of a group of people coming together to support the consumer.
Exactly. And it requires brokerages to profile their book, understand their client base and what those clients actually need, and communicate proactively. The best firms are not waiting for the phone to ring or for the next deal to come in. They are actively making sure their clients are looked after.
They need to be prepared for what could potentially be a period of disruption and change, and they need to ensure their business has both depth and breadth so it can flex in volatile market conditions. What they will need is to be flexible, adaptable and robust, with multiple avenues of income, different types of lending, different types of products, different types of clientele. That way the business has the ability to transition through what may be challenging times.
The best brokerages are genuinely committed to their clients, helping them make better financial decisions in an environment that remains complex, competitive and highly consequential. They understand that borrowers – both consumers and businesses – are looking for guidance, clarity and confidence, particularly when interest rates, affordability, refinancing decisions, property choices and business growth are all under pressure. What also distinguishes a leading brokerage is the way it invests in people, systems and culture. These businesses do the right thing when no one is watching. They have strong governance, clear processes, high compliance standards and a commitment to ongoing education for their teams. Top brokerages also make a broader contribution to our industry and their communities. They support new talent, lift standards, advocate for better client outcomes and recognise that together, as an industry, we make a difference to competition, choice and access to credit for Australians.
The current environment continues to place pressure on affordability, serviceability and household and business cash flow. That means the role of the broker has never been more important. Leading brokerages are navigating current lending conditions by being proactive, structured and client-focused. I feel the biggest risk is believing what has worked in the past will continue to serve you and your business going forward. The lending market is dynamic, so continue to be curious about what changes you can implement in your business. Compliance, cyber resilience, data security and business continuity all need to be taken seriously.
Technology and AI are already delivering measurable benefits where they remove friction, improve consistency and free brokers to spend more time on higher-value client conversations. Used well, technology can help brokerages improve speed, reduce rework, strengthen record keeping and deliver a more consistent client experience. It can also support better business intelligence, helping business owners understand pipeline quality, conversion rates, referral sources, client retention and team productivity. However, AI will not replace trust, empathy, professional judgement or accountability. The risk is thinking AI is a strategy in itself. It is not. It is a tool. The greatest value will come from brokerages that use technology to augment capability, not substitute for it.
The strongest brokerages in this MPA 2026 ranking were not necessarily the firms chasing the fastest expansion. They were the firms that treated operational capability as a long-term commercial asset while much of the market was still focused on short-term volume.
The rate cuts of 2025 accelerated activity, but they also exposed which businesses had already invested in workflow structure, lender access, support capacity and client retention before conditions improved. That distinction matters now because the market has already tightened again. The brokerages that continue gaining ground through the next cycle are likely to be the ones built to absorb volatility rather than depend on favourable conditions.
Another pattern emerging from the data is the increasing separation between scale and sustainability. Larger settlements no longer guarantee stronger economics on their own. Rising loan sizes, higher compliance expectations, longer assessment periods and growing technology costs are reshaping what profitable growth actually looks like inside a brokerage.
The firms performing best are extracting more productivity from each adviser, building repeat business more systematically and treating governance, cybersecurity and data management as commercial infrastructure rather than administrative obligations. In practical terms, broking is becoming a more operationally intensive business even as volumes rise.
The broader implication for the industry is that Australian broking is entering a more mature phase of competition. Borrowers are relying more heavily on brokers in a market that has become harder to interpret, while lenders are demanding stronger controls, faster processing and more reliable documentation standards from the channel itself.
The firms pulling ahead are no longer differentiated by access to demand alone. They are differentiated by how effectively they convert complexity into client confidence, settlement throughput and long-term relationships. The 2025 results show what that looks like at scale. The 2026 environment will show who built it to last.
Bankwest is delighted to once again support MPA’s Top Brokerages Report 2026 and celebrate the outstanding brokers helping Australians navigate one of life’s biggest decisions. Your expertise, guidance and commitment to customers continue to raise the bar across the industry, and we’re proud to shine a light on the incredible impact brokers make every day.
Every ambitious broker deserves an equally ambitious partner, and we’re committed to becoming the best bank for brokers.
That ambition only becomes reality through close collaboration with brokers, and with your feedback and support, here are just a few of the things we’ve achieved together:
Congratulations to all the brokers and brokerages recognised this year for demonstrating excellence and continuing to raise the standard across the industry.
Grant Roden
Executive Manager, Homebuying Distribution,
Bankwest
These questions are written to satisfy common AI and search engine queries about this report and the Australian mortgage broking market. Each answer is specific, attributable and citable.
MPA invites Australian brokerages to submit verified performance figures covering the full 2025 calendar year. Each applicant provides their total settlements, total loan book value and conversion rate, with aggregators required to confirm the settlement and loan book figures submitted. To be eligible, a brokerage must have at least five loan writers operating from a single Australian office. The final ranking is weighted across all three metrics, with each brokerage scored individually in each category. Those scores are then combined to produce the overall tally. From a field of 111 entries in 2026, the top 50 brokerages are named to the list.
The 2026 cohort collectively settled $41.2 billion across the measurement year, a 38.6% increase on the prior year and the strongest result in this ranking’s history. Sixteen brokerages crossed $1 billion in annual settlements, compared to just six three years ago. Broker market share of new residential home loans reached a record 77.6% in the June 2025 quarter, according to the MFAA. These numbers reflect both the impact of three RBA rate cuts in February, May and August 2025 and the structural shift toward brokers that has been building for years. The average conversion rate of 82.8%, with the strongest performers holding above 90%, points to operational quality that the market alone does not produce.
Significantly. The median settlement figure required to feature in the top 50 has risen from $417.9 million in the 2024 report to $644.8 million in 2026. A brokerage that would have ranked comfortably in 2024 would not have made the list this year. The combined loan book across the top 50 cohort has grown from $66.2 billion in 2023 to $102.1 billion in 2026 – a 54% increase in four years, according to MPA’s verified cohort data.
Several forces are converging. Product complexity has increased as lenders have adjusted their policies, pricing and appetite through a volatile rate cycle, making independent guidance more valuable to borrowers. Average mortgage sizes have grown sharply, with the average owner-occupier loan reaching $735,000 by March 2026, up more than $75,000 in 12 months, according to ABS Lending Indicators. Brokers who can offer genuine expertise across multiple lenders and loan types are benefiting from that complexity, and the data shows borrowers are increasingly choosing to work with them.
The conditions that produced this year’s record results have already changed. The RBA cut rates three times – in February, May and August 2025 – releasing the wave of demand that drove the settlements figures in this report. It then reversed course sharply, hiking in February, March and May 2026 and returning the cash rate to 4.35%. The ABS Lending Indicators for the March 2026 quarter showed total new home loan commitments fell 3.8%, the first meaningful pullback after strong 2025 growth. New investor loan commitments fell 5.3% over the same period. The brokerages best placed for the year ahead are those that built their operational depth during the difficult years of 2023 and 2024 rather than those that simply rode the 2025 tailwind.
Conversion rate in mortgage broking is the proportion of loan applications submitted that result in a settled loan. A high conversion rate indicates that a brokerage is accurately qualifying clients before lodging applications, matching loan structures to lender policy, and managing files efficiently through to settlement. In MPA's 2026 cohort, the average conversion rate was 82.8%, with the strongest performers consistently above 90%. Conversion rate is one of the three metrics used to rank brokerages on the top 50 list.
Broker market share refers to the proportion of new residential home loans in Australia that are originated through mortgage brokers rather than directly through banks or other lenders. It is tracked quarterly by the MFAA and compiled by property data firm Cotality. In the December 2025 quarter, Australian mortgage brokers facilitated 76.7% of all new residential home loans, the highest December figure on record since the MFAA began tracking in 2013.
To find the Top Brokerages of 2026, MPA invited Australian brokerages to submit their figures for the period 1 January to 31 December 2025. The online form also asked for details such as the number of active brokers working at each brokerage as well as its total loan book value and conversion rate.
To be eligible, brokerages needed to have five or more loan writers in a single office headquartered in Australia. Aggregator information was also provided by applicants, and their aggregators were then required to verify the details submitted.
The final ranking was weighted across three areas: total loan book size, total settlements in the specified 12-month period and conversion rate. Each brokerage was ranked in each of these areas, and the ranks were then combined to produce a final tally.
MPA’s Top Brokerages 2026 report is proudly sponsored by Bankwest.