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Skip, rebranded from Sucasa, has found that seven out of 10 clients who are taking out its 2 per cent deposit, no lender mortgage insurance (LMI) loans, are what they call “second chance” owners.
These are individuals who have previously owned property, but no longer do so, such as young families, upsizers, divorcees, ambitious young singles, and first-generation Australians.
This cohort is made up of people who are ineligible for the federal government’s 5 per cent Home Guarantee Scheme, yet are capable of supporting a mortgage if the deposit barrier were lowered.
Skip co-founder Mario Emmanuel said that the policies aimed to help people enter the market have created “a pool of ignored Australians.”
“Most of the policy attention has been nobly directed to helping first home buyers. We should absolutely continue to work hard to address the challenges this group faces,” Emmanuel said.
“But we shouldn’t be doing that at the expense of millions of others. An obsession with first home buyers is creating an emerging pool of ignored Aussies – people who have outgrown their current footprint and are finding it harder than ever to save for a deposit for the transition to more space.
“Just because someone once owned a unit and got their start on the metaphorical property ladder, doesn’t mean every rung above them is all of a sudden a breeze. This is a newer and growing problem, which requires a new solution as the gap between the median unit and median house price balloons by more than 40 per cent.”
To access this “second chance” home buyer segment of the market, Skip introduced its 2 per cent deposit home loan in April 2024.
“The 20 per cent deposit is an ideological handbrake,” Skip co-founder Adam Trouncer said.
“We’re giving brokers a way to help clients start building equity now, rather than watching their savings be diluted by property price growth and a rental market where costs have spiked 40 per cent in five years.”
Integration into broker channel
To support the broker network, Skip has announced this week that it will be integrated with fintech platform Quickli.
Skip’s 2 per cent deposit products have now been surfaced to Quickli’s 13,000 subscribers for use.
Trouncer said: “By integrating with Quickli, we are putting a solution directly into the broker’s workflow.
“When a broker sees a client paying $800 a week in rent but struggling to save $150,000 for a deposit, they now have a clear, integrated path to get that deal done by surfacing more fulsome recommendations.”
Following its move to join the lender panel of aggregator Loan Market Group (LMG), Skip has undergone a surge in broker activity. The lender now writes around 75 per cent of loans through the broker channel, up from 20 per cent the previous year.
Last year, Emmanuel told Broker Daily that engaging brokers had “always been a priority” since its inception in 2022.
Sucasa rebrands
The non-bank lender also announced its rebranding from Sucasa to Skip this week.
Skip said that the decision to move away from the Sucasa brand had been several months in the making and was driven by a desire for sharper cut-through and clearer alignment with its mission to “skip to the owning bit”.
Read more about the rebrand at Broker Daily sister brand The Adviser.
[Related: Quickli incorporates AI into new Pro tier]