Max Direen of Aussie Home Loans in Mackay Queensland worked in the motor industry for 25 years before becoming a mortgage broker. Now, a seasoned broker with 13 years of experience under his belt he believes his greatest learning curve throughout his working career has been to “adapt to change with speed”.
Outside of being a mortgage broker, Max lives in Mackay with his wife Kay, where they have five adult children, an incredible seven grandchildren and a three year old German Shepherd which gets treated like a child, especially by his wife Kay.
Max was born in Oamaru New Zealand and grew up in North Otago, South Canterbury and Otago before migrating to Australia on the 10th July 1981. Five years later, Max and Kay moved to Mackay where they have been ever since.
An avid sportsman, Max has participated in many sports including tennis, squash, outrigging, speedway and from the age of 5 until 43 years old, he was a keen rugby player. For 35 years, Max played golf on and off and now enjoys a position as the President of the Mackay Golf Club.
His greatest passion is caravanning and seeing the amazing and vast country which is Australia.
“I love seeing Australia and travelling overseas, but it always makes me feel so appreciative of home and Mackay”.
Aussie Home Loans Mackay
After Max left the motor industry after a quarter of a century, he decided he would move into the financial services industry as a way of earning a passive income doing something he thought he could achieve at and enjoy.
After working as a mobile broker briefly for Aussie, an opportunity arose for Max to move into being an Aussie franchise broker when the Mackay area was made available.
“It has taken me 10 years to build and create an amazing team at our Aussie Mackay store. Our ethos and philosophy is to treat everyone the way we would like to be treated and to provide a service which is second to none”.
Above and beyond for clients
Not long after Max started with Aussie as a mobile broker, he was working with a Japanese gentleman whose English wasn’t the best and in turn the language barrier was making it difficult for both of them. Wanting to ensure his client fully understood everything and wasn’t missing any important information, Max got in the car and drove from Mackay to Cairns, approximately 860kms on Father’s Day to meet with his client and help him as much as possible.
“On my way home from Cairns after meeting with the client, I received a lead in Airlie Beach and so I organised a meeting with that client the following morning at 7.30am after staying the night in Townsville the previous night. You have to be willing to go above and beyond for your clients when you are a mortgage broker”.
Max and his team at the Mackay Aussie Home Loans store are enthusiastic members of the community where they sponsor a number of sporting clubs, teams and various events as well as engaging in promotions like “chicks at the flicks”.
“It’s important to give back to the community when you can. On top of sponsoring various clubs and teams etc. we also do some advertising on the local TV and radio stations and we also invest in social media marketing too”.
Clients' protection, a moral obligation
Max is a firm believer in educating his clients on the importance of protection when entering a large debt. Discussing My Protection Plan from the very first meeting with clients and making it an imperative part of the process the whole way through.
“I let my clients know that I will be discussing with them the importance of protection because I feel I am morally obligated to ensure they have a plan in place in the event something happens and they can’t meet their repayments. If the client can’t afford full cover, we work to find a cover to suit them because as I always say, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing”.