Richard Esteb

How I work

Solo brokerage. Real attention per file. Most of my time goes into self-employed structures, investor portfolios, and borrowers whose income or liabilities fall outside the bank-calculator template. The calculator I publish is the same methodology I run before lodgement — assessment rate per lender, DTI cap, HEM, income shading by employment type. Deal-binding figures are confirmed against the actual lender's servicing calculator at deal stage.

Gold Coast based. Most files run remotely (phone, email, electronic signing).

Where I focus

• Self-employed home loans. Sole-trader, company, and trust structures. BAS-derived income, add-back categories, multi-entity flow-through. The widest spread on the panel sits here, so the broker work matters most.
• Investor lending. Single-property and portfolio. LVR strategy, debt-recycling structures, interest-only versus principal-and-interest decisions, lender appetite for high-density and regional stock.
• Complex PAYG income. Bonuses, commissions, allowances, second jobs, recent role changes — the cases where bank tools shade income hardest and lender variance is widest.
• First home buyers. Queensland First Home Owner Grant, First Home Guarantee, stamp duty concessions, family pledge / guarantor structures where they make sense.
• Refinance. Including cashback assessment with honest treatment of clawback risk, switching costs, and retention-rate negotiation as an alternative to switching.