How a Mortgage Broking Firm Saved $180K/Year with Offshore Staff

An Australian mortgage broking firm cut its annual staffing costs by $179,400 — close to $180,000 — by hiring four offshore professionals through Pear Tree instead of four local hires. Two mortgage broker assistants, a bookkeeper, and a loan-processing administrator now cost $81,600 a year combined, against $261,000 locally. The result: up to 69% savings, more loans settled per broker, and no ongoing agency fees.

How did one mortgage broking firm save $180,000 a year?

The firm replaced four planned local hires with four offshore team members placed directly through Pear Tree. The saving comes from the gap between Australian salaries and Pear Tree's transparent offshore rates — before factoring in the recruitment fees, superannuation, and office on-costs the firm avoided entirely.

Here is the breakdown the firm worked from, comparing Australian local salary against Pear Tree's offshore annual cost:

That $179,400 is salary alone. Once the standard 15–25% recruitment agency fee (industry standard 2025) and superannuation are added to the local figures, the real gap is wider.

What roles can mortgage broking firms hire offshore?

Mortgage broking firms hire offshore staff for every administrative and processing role that doesn't legally require an Australian credit licence. The most common are mortgage broker assistants, loan processors, bookkeepers, and client-service administrators — the back-office work that consumes a broker's day.

This matters because Australia's mortgage broking market is booming and short on people. Brokers settled $99.37 billion in home loans in the March 2025 quarter, up 22% year on year, and now write 76.8% of all new residential loans (MFAA Q1 2025). With more than 19,000 brokers competing for support staff in a market where 85% of Australian organisations struggle to find skills locally (Hays 2025), offshore hiring fills the gap that local recruitment can't.

How much does an offshore mortgage broker assistant cost?

An offshore mortgage broker assistant costs $2,000 per month — $24,000 a year — through Pear Tree, against $60,000–$80,000 for the same role locally. That is a saving of up to 70%. The figures below show the core mortgage-firm roles across Australian and New Zealand benchmarks:

Can offshore mortgage staff use Australian lending platforms?

Yes. Offshore mortgage assistants work daily in the same systems Australian brokers use — aggregator CRMs, ApplyOnline, NextGen, and the lender portals that drive loan submission. Pear Tree screens 200–400 applicants per role and runs a practical skill test before shortlisting, so candidates arrive with the relevant software and lending-process competence rather than learning on the job.

Bookkeepers placed through Pear Tree are equally fluent in Xero and MYOB, the two platforms most Australian broking firms run their trail-commission reconciliation through. The result is a team member productive within their first fortnight, not their first quarter.

Is it legal for mortgage brokers to hire offshore staff in Australia?

Yes, with the right structure. Offshore administrative and processing staff do not require an Australian Credit Licence, because credit advice and the licensed activity remain with the Australian broker. The compliance work is in three areas: correct contractor classification, client data protection, and a clear engagement contract.

Pear Tree manages this through Employer of Record (EOR) and Contractor of Record (COR) arrangements from $400/month — structures that keep the offshore hire compliant in their home country and remove classification risk. Data security is built in from day one through VPN access, two-factor authentication (2FA), and compliant cloud workflows, which matters when staff handle sensitive borrower financials and Australia sees over 1,100 notifiable data breaches a year (OAIC 2025).

Why did the firm choose direct hire over a BPO or agency?

The firm chose Pear Tree's direct-hire model because it keeps the savings with the business rather than a middleman. There are two models for offshore hiring: the traditional BPO or agency model, where the provider charges a premium and takes an ongoing margin, and the direct-hire model, where the team member works directly for you with full salary transparency. Traditional BPO markups run 3x–5x what the talent actually earns (Outsource Accelerator 2024).

Pear Tree charges a one-time placement fee with no ongoing management costs, so the firm keeps the full $179,400 saving year after year. Because talent is paid fairly under this model, retention runs at 90% against a ~60% industry average — the firm isn't re-hiring and re-training every 18 months.

What results did the firm see beyond cost savings?

Beyond the $180,000 saving, the firm freed its brokers to write more loans. By moving processing and administration offshore, each broker reclaimed hours previously lost to paperwork and redirected them to client meetings and settlements — the activity that grows a broking business.

The firm also gained capacity it couldn't fund locally. Four offshore hires for the price of roughly one-and-a-half local salaries meant the firm scaled its support team during a record settlement period instead of capping growth on cost. Onboarding through Pear Tree took 1–2 weeks, against an Australian average of 44 days to fill a single role (SEEK 2025).

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Key takeaway

A mortgage broking firm saved close to $180,000 a year by hiring four offshore professionals directly through Pear Tree, at up to 69% below local cost and with no ongoing agency fees. For a sector settling record loan volumes with a thin local talent pool, direct offshore hiring converts a staffing shortage into settled-loan capacity.

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AUTHOR BIO: Nick is Co-Founder of Pear Tree, a direct offshore talent placement company helping Australian and New Zealand businesses hire world-class Filipino and South African professionals — without the agency markup. With offices in Sydney, Auckland, Cebu, Manila, Cape Town, and Hawke's Bay, Pear Tree has placed talent with 750+ companies and maintains a 90% retention rate.

Frank is Co-Founder of Pear Tree with deep expertise in offshore talent sourcing and operations across the Philippines and South Africa.

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