We built a census snapshot and three practical points on every suburb page. We also added an enquiry form set to the loan, with a message naming the suburb.
The business
Meet Finance and Homes is a mortgage broking business run by two directors from an office in Epping, in Melbourne's north. The brokers compare lenders for first home buyers, refinancers, investors and people building a home, and arrange specialist loans for the self-employed and medical professionals, business and commercial finance, and car, truck and equipment loans. The business serves the whole of Melbourne from that office.
The brief
Borrowers rarely look for a mortgage broker in the abstract. They look for a particular kind of loan, often with the name of their suburb attached, and they want to know who they will be talking to before they make contact.
The brief was to answer each borrower's question for their own suburb, to explain the trade-offs of each loan in plain English, and to make the first conversation easy to start without turning the site into a lending recommendation.
22 loan types for each of 544 suburbs
The live site holds 12,575 pages. The areas page lists 544 Melbourne suburbs and localities across six regions, with a search by suburb or council. Each suburb has a hub page, and each hub links to a page for every one of the 22 loan types, from first home buyer loans and refinancing to land banking, cash flow finance and truck loans. That makes 11,968 pages that pair a loan with a suburb, such as debt consolidation loans in Collingwood.
A suburb and loan page opens with the loan named for that suburb, three plain points to weigh up, and a form already set to that loan with a message about discussing it in that suburb. The visitor only adds a name, an email and a number.
Census figures before the advice
Each suburb page carries a snapshot panel with the residents, occupied homes and the shares of separate houses, apartments and rented homes, with the council and region named. The notes beside it turn the figures into practical points. Where most homes are apartments, the page suggests checking owners corporation costs with a conveyancer; where most are rented, it suggests planning for overlapping rent and moving costs. Each page credits its sources and says plainly that a lender assesses the actual property and application.
Pages that explain the trade-offs
The loan pages read like a careful broker. The debt consolidation page asks the reader to compare the total cost over time, to understand what becomes secured against the home and to deal with the reason the debt built up, and it points anyone already behind on payments to hardship help and free financial counselling. Where the suburb pages offer calculators, a note says they give estimates, not an offer of finance.
32 calculators and an Epping hub
The calculators page holds 32 tools in six groups, from borrowing power, offset and split loans to stamp duty, rent against buying and car loans. The Epping page works as the office hub, with the office address, every loan type grouped as home, specialist, business and asset finance, the planning calculators and the four steps from the first conversation to settlement. The Areas menu starts from Epping and lists 18 suburbs in three parts of Melbourne, with a link to all 544.
Built for phones
On a phone the header shrinks to the logo and the menu. Both directors' contact cards sit under the headline with their photos and a tap-to-call number each, and a round call button follows the visitor down every page. Service pages add quick links to the benefits, the process, eligibility and the calculators.
What it is for
The site gives a small broking business the reach of a much larger one without losing the personal side: a borrower in Collingwood, Cranbourne or Craigieburn reads about their own suburb and their own loan, then talks to one of the two directors. For a finance business planning a site at this scale, see our website design services.
