Before Success & Broker, there was over a decade on the tools, building two mortgage broking businesses from scratch, in two very different markets, and learning what actually separates a broker who survives from one who scales.
Started Home Loans Etc in Gladstone as a single broker
Written in its biggest single year, across 367 loans
Loan book built at Time Home Loans in seven years
Google reviews collected by the Time Home Loans team
Ruan started Home Loans Etc in Gladstone in August 2007 as a single broker with two full-time and three part-time support staff. He built the business by embedding himself in the local real estate network, cementing a relationship with Remax Gladstone and its principal, Jeff Williams, and by becoming a genuine part of the community: sponsoring local sporting clubs, running finance literacy sessions at local high schools, and backing local fundraising initiatives.
In its biggest year, the business settled 367 loans worth $132 million.
In 2012, Ruan relocated to Brisbane and, in 2013, launched Time Home Loans with a different ambition: build a business around a team, not around himself. Within its run to 2021, Time Home Loans grew to four full-time brokers, three self-employed brokers, and a support team spanning an operations manager, executive assistant, two broker partners, and three back-office managers.
At its peak, Time Home Loans settled more than $500 million a year, and the business collected over 700 Google reviews along the way.
Across fourteen years and two businesses, Ruan built a leadership philosophy that now underpins Success & Broker's coaching approach. It is the same philosophy he brings to every broker he coaches.
The relationship with your team has to be built the same way you build it with clients.
So money is never their reason for leaving.
Even if it means they eventually outgrow you. That's what earns loyalty while they're there.
It isn't a marketing tactic. It's the most durable way to compete.
In December 2020, after building a loan book exceeding $1 billion in seven years, Ruan sold Time Home Loans. He founded Success & Broker in 2021 to take everything he'd learned building two businesses from the ground up, the systems, the mistakes and the wins, and put it to work helping other brokers build theirs.
Today Ruan works as a mortgage broker coach to brokers across Australia, from new-to-industry loan writers through to established brokerages planning their next stage of growth or succession.
Ready to build something that doesn't depend on you being in the room?
Ruan Burger is the founder and head coach of Success & Broker, a Brisbane-based coaching business for Australian mortgage brokers. Before coaching, he founded and ran two brokerages: Home Loans Etc in Gladstone (2007) and Time Home Loans in Brisbane (2013 to 2021), which he sold after building a loan book of more than $1 billion.
A mortgage broker coach works with brokers and brokerage owners on the business side of broking: lead flow, systems and processes, recruiting and leading a team, brand, client experience and succession. Ruan's coaching is built on running two brokerages himself, including an award-winning one, rather than on theory.
Success & Broker supports brokers right from the early stages, where The Broker Journal has proven extremely useful. Brokers tend to work with Ruan one-on-one once they are beyond their mentorship years and are looking to accelerate growth and tackle the challenges that come with growing a business.
Use the contact page or call 0429 154 434. Ruan is based in Brisbane, Queensland and works with brokers Australia-wide.
