The Australian mortgage broking industry reached a record market share of 81.6% in the June quarter of 2026, up from 77.6% a year earlier, according to MFAA and Cotality data.
More Australians are choosing brokers to help them navigate their lending options. For brokerage owners, retaining clients, reducing admin and protecting client information remain priorities as technology and market conditions change.
Here are the top 10 team, technology and market trends shaping how brokers work in 2026 and beyond.
Mortgage Broking Industry Trends for 2026 Full Analysis
For brokerage owners, these trends create opportunities alongside some practical challenges. Clients need ongoing support as interest rates change. AI is taking on more work. Policy shifts are changing specialist lending markets, while borrowers have more tools to research and monitor their own loans.
Here’s a closer look at the ten trends in the infographic and what they could mean for your firm.
1. Back Book Management Comes First
In 2025, interest rates were coming down. By the end of September 2026, the RBA had increased the cash rate four times during the year. That change makes proactive support for existing clients a priority.
Many borrowers are exposed to those movements. The RBA’s May 2026 analysis reported that the fixed-rate share of outstanding housing loans had fallen below 5% in 2025. Meanwhile, Roy Morgan estimated that 32.5% of mortgage holders were at risk of mortgage stress in the three months to July 2026.
Existing relationships also generate a substantial share of broker business. The MFAA and Deloitte’s 2025 report identified repeat customers and customer referrals as accounting for 44% and 28% respectively, a combined 72%.
Tools such as Stryd and Sherlok can help brokers monitor loans and identify potential review or repricing opportunities. The next step is making sure someone follows up.
A regular review process, with clear responsibility for contacting clients, can turn an alert into a useful conversation. Reaching out early gives your firm an opportunity to help before a client starts looking elsewhere.
2. AI Moves From Personal to Firm Wide
Early AI use often started with individual experimentation. Someone found a useful prompt, summarised a document or drafted an email, then developed their own way of working.
As AI becomes part of more tasks, brokerage owners have an opportunity to make those improvements available across the team. Useful prompts, templates and checking processes can become shared resources rather than knowledge that stays with one person.
Yet Connective’s research found that 65% of respondents had no clear AI strategy or documented plan.
For a brokerage, a practical strategy can start with a few decisions: which tasks AI should support, which tools the team can use, what information they can access and who checks the work.
For example, if AI helps prepare a document, everyone should know which template to use, what information to include and what needs human review.
Capturing what works can help your firm reduce repeated experimentation and deliver more consistent work and client service.
3. More AI Access Means More to Protect
Connected AI tools and agents can access information and take actions across business systems. For a brokerage, that may include client records, emails and financial documents, bringing privacy and security risks beyond what someone pastes into a chat window.
The Australian Signals Directorate’s September 2026 guidance addresses these risks directly. It recommends limiting access to what a task requires, requiring human approval for sensitive or high-impact actions, checking outputs and recording activity for review.
For your firm, that means understanding what each tool can see and do. A tool that drafts an email has a different level of responsibility from one that can send it or change a client record.
Decide which actions need approval, how outputs will be checked and who is responsible for reviewing access as the tool’s use expands.
Clear access limits and human oversight can help your team benefit from AI while protecting client information and maintaining control of the work.
4. Lenders Collaborate to Prevent Fraud
Reporting in August 2026 identified at least $4 billion in suspected fraudulent loans across Australia’s five largest banks. The figure relates to suspected fraud, rather than proven losses. The reporting also described information sharing between banks, regulators and police, with attention extending to the brokers and referrers connected to applications.
For brokerages, this reinforces the value of staying alert to potential concerns throughout the application process.
Consistent verification, clear file notes and checks on referrers help your team understand the information behind an application. They also help demonstrate how it was assessed when credit assistance was provided.
These safeguards work best when they are part of everyday processing. Give staff a clear way to raise questions, resolve inconsistencies and record what was checked.
Making those steps routine can help protect your lender and client relationships while supporting a consistent standard of work across the firm.
5. Diversification Now Includes Everyday Services
Diversification is expanding beyond additional lending products to services clients need around a property purchase or move.
That becomes particularly relevant when home loan demand softens. Equifax enquiry data reported in August 2026 showed four consecutive months of year-on-year declines in mortgage demand.
Commercial lending, asset finance and personal loans remain options for broadening a firm’s offering. Aggregator partnerships also provide access to services such as conveyancing, insurance and utility connections. AFG’s Partner Connect is one example of this broader referral model.
A client buying a home may need help finding a conveyancer or arranging household connections. A business owner may have equipment or commercial finance needs alongside their residential loan.
Your firm can support those needs through its own capabilities or suitable referral partners. A clear handover and follow-up process helps make the referral useful to the client.
Handled well, a broader offering can deepen relationships and create additional income opportunities when residential lending activity slows.
6. More Borrowers Are Choosing Brokers
Mortgage brokers’ share of new Australian home loans has grown from 53.9% in June 2018 to 77.6% in June 2025 and 81.6% in June 2026. That is a substantial change in how Australians access home lending.
As using a broker becomes more common, more of the decision centres on which broker to choose.
Your firm needs to give prospective clients a clear reason to contact you. That might be experience with a particular borrower group, an easy-to-follow process or reliable support after settlement.
The difference needs to be visible in your marketing and reflected in the experience clients receive. Explain who you help, how you work and what they can expect.
Clear communication, consistent follow-ups and useful ongoing service give clients something concrete to remember and recommend.
7. Policy Shifts Test Specialist Lending Models
Specialist lending knowledge can be a strong advantage. It also means changes affecting one market segment can have a significant effect on a firm’s pipeline.
The 2026 SMSF borrowing restrictions illustrate that exposure. From 10 August 2026, new limited recourse borrowing arrangements to acquire residential property were generally restricted. Existing arrangements and permitted refinancing remain, as does lending for eligible business real property.
The Government’s negative gearing reforms, scheduled from July 2027, also change the settings for residential property investment, with different treatment for new builds and existing properties.
These shifts could influence demand for new builds, construction finance and commercial property lending. The extent of that change will depend on how borrowers and lenders respond.
For specialist firms, broader lending capabilities or referral partnerships may help capture emerging demand. The practical starting point is understanding how much of your income depends on one segment and where your existing expertise could support clients as their needs change.
8. Succession Creates Acquisition Opportunities
In the FBAA’s July 2025 poll of 100 members, 30% of respondents were aged 60 or over. It is an indicative survey result, rather than a measure of how many brokers are about to retire, but it provides context for succession planning.
As owners consider their next stage, there may be opportunities for both sellers and buyers.
For sellers, clean records, documented processes and client relationships that can transfer to another team may make a business easier to hand over. Preparing those foundations takes time, so succession planning can be useful well before an owner intends to leave.
For buyers, acquiring a loan book can expand the client base. The opportunity also brings a service commitment: your team needs the capacity to introduce itself, understand those clients and provide ongoing support.
Planning the handover and follow-up process helps make the acquisition manageable for your team and reassuring for clients.
9. The Rise of Fintertainment
Financial content can be informative and entertaining at the same time. For brokers, that creates room for different approaches on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, from casual clips and recurring jokes to professionally produced video podcasts.
An engaging format can help content reach people beyond an existing audience. TikTok’s published explanation of its recommendation system describes how user interactions and video information influence recommendations, with follower count not a direct ranking factor.
That gives brokers a reason to experiment with how they present their expertise. A recognisable series, a relatable situation or a clear explanation can help make a technical topic easier to watch and remember.
The opportunity is to become familiar to potential clients before they need a loan. Choose a format your team can sustain and topics that matter to the people you want to help.
An entertaining hook may earn attention; useful content gives viewers a reason to keep listening.
10. Borrowers Are Getting Their Own Tools
Consumers now have access to tools that monitor home loans and alert them to potential rate savings. They can also use AI to help with early research.
A Mortgage Choice survey of 1,000 Australians in September 2025 found that 36% were comfortable using AI to compare home loan products and 32% to estimate borrowing capacity. Those figures measure comfort with AI, rather than actual use.
Human guidance remains valuable. Separate Great Southern Bank research found that 69% of respondents who had received broker or financial adviser guidance rated it more valuable than AI advice.
For brokers, the opportunity is to help clients interpret what they find. A rate alert or borrowing estimate can start a conversation, but clients still need to understand which options suit their circumstances and what is involved in acting on them.
Proactively identifying opportunities and explaining the choices clearly can give clients more reasons to keep coming back.
Put These Trends Into Practice
For brokerage owners, these trends point to practical improvements in how the firm operates: regular loan reviews, shared processes for AI, consistent application checks and clear responsibility for client follow-ups.
Start with the area that would make the greatest difference to your team or clients. Document the process, assign responsibility and make sure the work can be followed through consistently.
See how BrokerEngine can help your team manage loan processing and client follow-ups through consistent workflows.
Disclaimer
The information provided in this article is a selection of information taken from publicly available sources and is current as at the date specified. We do not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. Any information provided is of a general nature and/or for illustrative purposes. It does not take into account a person’s objectives, financial situation or needs and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. We suggest you consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction. We make no representations about any third party supplier referred to, or linked, in this article.
