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Every business has a story and unique circumstances. I choose to specialise in commercial finance because I enjoy learning about people and tailer-making a solution that is meaningful to your business.
I was born and raised in Atherton with two older brothers. My parents owned and operated a construction business for most of my life and as a family we moved to Cairns in 2016 chasing warmer weather. I am a devoted Cowboys supporter and enjoy fishing, camping and spending time with my new fiancé and dogs.
I have over 8 years of experience in the finance industry most of which has been served at ANZ bank. I have worked as a branch manager across FNQ including Innisfail, Port Douglas and Cairns. My last role in the bank was as a Senior Business Banking Manager servicing the FNQ region. I decided to join Astute in 2024 because I was frustrated with the direction of banks and wanted to get back to old school face to face service.
If you would like to sit down and discuss your business, I’d love to hear from you! I can help you with:
• Property Purchases
• Asset/Vehicle finance
• Business purchases & restructures
• Self-Managed Superannuation lending
• Business expansion & working capital solutions
I had no understanding of how the insurance side of Astute worked. After my first visit with Peta I was blown away with how she explained everything to me. And what I didn’t understand she was happy to take the extra time to explain them again. I felt she was very thorough and when I left I was able to think about what suited my needs to make a decision on how I wanted to proceed. Thanks Peta for advice.
Simon is fantastic! He explains and explains again if you don’t understand. He has helped us on a couple of occasions now and seriously, I wouldn’t go anywhere else or to anyone else.
Simon Cody is a model financier… Courteous and talented… He’s an asset to the home loan industry
Astute are very professional & helpful. Would recommend these guys to anyone looking at refinancing or purchasing. Started with this team when they were in their little office, my how they have grown. Special thanks to Verena for all her help but all the staff are wonderful and great with the little ones as well 🙂 Thanks heaps.
First, Tania: Quite simply, a complete, caring professional. I am not sure where on the spectrum the amount of work she did to get us into our current home falls in her professional career (mind-blowingly easy, somewhat challenging, borderline impossible…), but to us it literally meant the world. The reason we came back to her (and Astute) is because of the level of care and attention she gave us–we don’t feel like a number, an account, a bottom line, or a percentage point. I would recommend her (and go back to her for advice) again and again and again; when we found ourselves in the position to invest and/or buy again, our first thought was we needed to talk to Tania before doing literally anything else.
Building on that, Astute: Again, I would (and do) recommend them to anyone when talk of buying a home or investing comes up. Long story short, I work for a guy named Scotty Garden, and there is very little under the Earth’s sun I would not do for him; ergo I take his advice on anything as gospel. When I causally mentioned a few years back that Michelle and I were thinking of buying a house, he enthusiastically recommended we talk to John Watts at Cairns Home Loans and we did, and John gave us solid, practical advice: Save a bit more and come back to us. And we did, because he looked after us as people (again not an account). He could have talked us into buying something we couldn’t afford, or buying something we didn’t really want, or (as one local branch of an unnamed John Symond-run group told us) we were grumpily told it was “unrealistic” to think of buying a home in our position. Working in tourism/hospitality, I appreciate the personal attention, as well as helping a local business continue doing what it does well.
Sorry to gush, but Michelle and I really do hold you and your whole team in the highest regard. Thank you again, and I will [not] try to stay out of trouble.
We were recommended from friends to see Fei Chan to discuss buying investment property. He was very polite, friendly, sincere and honest. But most importantly, he has made it clearer for us on how to build our property portfolio for a better future. For that, I too highly recommend his service to others.
We have been using John since we bought our first house in 2008 and taken sound advice from him in all our finance dealing ever since; which has included, opening a business, building our second house and now purchasing an investment property. We trust the advice given to us and not understanding the finance world hugely rely on the knowledge given to us in making decisions. We thank Verena very much with her patience throughout each deal and her simple way of explaining the overwhelming fluff that the banks put on paper. Johns stickmen and drawings helped us immensely 🙂 We really feel like we have actually made some good friends when dealing with Astute.
