Jeremy Fisher of 1st Street Financial on stepping up in tough times

Jeremy Fisher of 1st Street Financial showed generosity and community spirit when in response to the devastating bushfires of Summer 2019/20, he established a broker disaster relief fund which, with the help of industry partners, went on to raise over $475,000.

Just months later, Jeremy has turned his attention to helping his local community and clients as they cope with the impact of COVID-19 and some of the toughest economic conditions anyone has seen in over a century.

Although experiencing a temporary downturn of new clients, Jeremy says brokers are fortunate when compared with many other industries. He has committed his time and the resources of 1st Street Financial to help struggling local businesses, while focusing on compassionate customer service as more clients reach out for help.

The subject of this edition of Prospa Groundbreakers, the Managing Director of 1st Street Financial says now is the time for brokers to step up and once again show just how valuable our industry is in times of financial hardship.

MFAA: Jeremy, can you tell us about what you have been up to over the past six months particularly in terms of 1st Street Financial’s philanthropic efforts?

Jeremy Fisher (JF): We’ve always had a focus on giving back to the community. For many years the business has been supported by the community, so we try to give back wherever we can. A couple of years ago we started talking about the charities that meant something to us. One of our broker’s fathers has Parkinson’s Disease, and another’s mother passed away from breast cancer, so we came up with a different charity of the month to support both financially and also if a charity had something on, like a walk for premature babies or a feed the homeless type event. We’ve been doing those things for many years now and we earmark giving about $50,000 a year.

MFAA: Tell us about your efforts in response to the bushfire crisis of Summer 2019/20?

JF: When the bushfires happened, we wanted to help all the communities to rebuild, so we contacted local councils in the areas affected by the bushfires. I’m a tennis player from way back and still play regularly, so I reached out and contacted Tennis Australia and put together a list of the various tennis centres that were either completely burnt down or impacted with equipment destroyed. We put together some packs that we then shipped out to various centres and it was just racquets, balls, and tennis gear to help get those centres back on their feet.

MFAA: And what about in response to COVID-19, have you continued to give back to the community?

JF: Yes, so in the more recent months with COVID-19, we’ve shifted our focus to what’s going on right now with the local businesses around our office – the travel businesses, coffee shops and many others. What we’ve done is we’ve gone to the coffee shops near us and said, ‘We want to support you’, and we’ve bought lunch for the travel agency across the road and we’ve got the coffee shop to take it to them. We are calling that initiative: ‘Local First’ which is really just helping to support small businesses doing it tough and providing them with a banquet lunch that we’ve purchased from another small business in the area, so we’re helping out two businesses at once. That’s what we’ve tried to do to give back and do our little bit.

MFAA: And how are people responding to your community efforts?

JF: Really well. You get phone calls with tears and really lovely messages of thanks and shout-outs on social media, but we don’t do it for the recognition. The tourism and hospitality industries have been annihilated, but the local businesses are still there opening their doors, which is great. I think it’s important that we realise we’re all in this together, and the broking industry is very fortunate in the way our model works and we get an ongoing trail. We’re one of the few businesses during this time that still has a steady income, so we just need to acknowledge how fortunate we are even though we might be losing business. We’re a fairly well-established industry with a lot of people that still have a decent ongoing income stream, so I think it’s important that we share it around and give back where we can.

MFAA: And how are you going in the business with all that is happening?

JF: Yes, obviously there’s no question that new business has quietened down particularly on the purchase side. A lot of time is being spent helping clients, just even spending five or 10 minutes talking about their situation. They may not have lost their job yet but they want to know what’s next? Is there an opportunity for a mortgage pause? Is there an opportunity maybe for getting my payments reduced? The opportunity is to help clients reduce payments by renegotiation, not necessarily refinancing. We’re spending a lot of time on that, which is time consuming and almost all of it is not income generating. But we’re doing this work because we feel it’s our time to step up and really just be there for our clients. A day doesn’t go past that I’m not hearing from multiple clients concerned about whether they can afford their mortgage. There’s a lot of counselling going on, and it is time consuming, but it’s rewarding in a different way. I think it’s what we have to accept for at least a few months and then it’s going to be a slow climb out of this into a new norm. I think volumes will be down perhaps for the rest of the year as people will take a bit of time to get back the confidence they had at the end of last year, so it’s interesting times ahead. But this is exactly what we are here for and what we get paid for. To be there for our clients and to keep our doors open and support them in any way possible. That’s what we are doing and have been doing for the past little while.

MFAA: What else are you doing differently for your clients in these difficult times?

JF: At this point in time we are trying to educate our clients. As a group we are getting together every few days and asking ourselves, ‘What are our clients asking of us right now’? Then we put together Q&As and send them out to clients. Some of the questions have included, ‘Can I switch my loan to interest only?’ or, ‘Is fixing the right thing to do?’ We’ll continue to do that and inform our clients about what we think they want to hear. Apart from that we are helping our existing clients and keeping them in a position where they are in a suitable loan. There’s also refinancing and top-ups. I think stock levels will be low and we’re not going to have the forced sellers like in the GFC. I think for brokers and the banks there is going to be a real focus on refinancing because I suspect over the coming months and perhaps for the rest of the year, if you don’t have to sell then sellers aren’t going to be putting their property on the market. So, renegotiating rates, reducing repayments and the like will be our business for the next few months and that’s not a bad thing. As I said, if we can help our clients get through this difficult time then that’s another big tick for the industry. This is a time when hopefully brokers aren’t impacted to the point where we have to shut down business, so we can step up and really look to help our clients because this is the time that they need us most.