Josh Houlahan - Commercial Finance & Mortgage Broker Brisbane
Director / Finance Adviser / Mortgage Broker
Helping business owners, professionals and individuals navigate the world of finance
Josh Houlahan is the founder and Director of JLH Finance Advisory. He is an experienced commercial finance adviser and mortgage broker based in Brisbane. He has worked in banking and finance since 2006, building more than 20 years of experience across agribusiness, business banking, corporate finance, commercial lending, asset finance and home loan finance.
Before establishing JLH Finance, Josh worked inside NAB, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ across regional New South Wales, Sydney, Mackay and Brisbane. This experience gave him a detailed understanding of how banks operate, how credit teams assess risk and what makes a complex finance application easier—or more difficult—to approve.
Today, Josh uses that knowledge to help business owners, professionals, property investors and private clients structure and present their finance clearly.
His clients often have financial positions that do not fit neatly into a standard lending application. They may operate multiple businesses, hold assets through companies and trusts, generate income from different industries or require several forms of finance across their business and personal structures.
Josh takes the time to understand the full story behind the numbers. He then develops a finance strategy, identifies the appropriate lenders and presents the application in a way that addresses the questions a bank’s credit team is likely to ask.
Josh’s approach
Josh believes that good finance advice begins with understanding the client—not promoting a particular lender or product.
His approach is built around:
Long-term relationships
Honest and practical advice
A detailed understanding of the client’s complete position
Clear communication
Strong financial and credit analysis
Well-structured, lender-ready applications
Consistent support before, during and after settlement
Having worked on both sides of the table, Josh understands what clients are trying to achieve and what banks need to see before they can support it.
That perspective is at the centre of JLH Finance Advisory.
From Moree to banking and finance
Josh is originally from Moree in northern New South Wales.
Growing up in one of Australia’s major agricultural regions, he worked in the cotton industry from a young age and developed a lasting interest in agriculture, business and regional communities.
After attending Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview in Sydney, Josh completed a Bachelor of Natural Resource Economics, majoring in Agricultural Economics.
At the end of his degree, he secured a position in NAB’s Agribusiness Graduate Program. His first posting was to Bourke in regional New South Wales.
Bourke was an important start to Josh’s banking career. As one of the only bankers in the community, the role extended beyond agricultural lending and included business banking, commercial finance and home loans.
The experience reinforced the importance of community and long-term relationships. It also sparked Josh’s interest in looking after a client’s complete finance position—from the debt supporting their business or agricultural operations through to their home and personal property lending.
Josh subsequently worked across Bourke and Dubbo before returning to Sydney during the Global Financial Crisis to expand his experience in business and corporate banking.
Business banking in Sydney
Working through the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis gave Josh valuable experience in assessing businesses and structuring finance in a more cautious and rapidly changing credit environment.
Within NAB Business Banking, Josh initially worked with a portfolio specialising in professional services. This included providing lending support to accountants, financial planners, lawyers and high-net-worth professionals.
He later helped manage and grow a broader business banking portfolio that included:
Established property developers and investors
Large international businesses with Australian banking requirements
Manufacturing businesses
Hospitality operators
Privately owned and family-run businesses
These roles strengthened Josh’s ability to understand the connection between a client’s business operations, property holdings, personal position and longer-term financial objectives.
Corporate banking experience
Josh subsequently worked within NAB Corporate Banking, supporting manufacturing and technology clients.
The portfolio included large private companies, family groups and publicly listed businesses outside the ASX 200. His work provided exposure to:
Complex commercial lending structures
Syndicated banking transactions
Working-capital facilities
Debtor finance
Trade and import finance
Foreign exchange
Asset and equipment finance
Businesses with multiple entities and complex ownership structures
Corporate banking provided Josh with valuable technical experience. It also confirmed that his real passion was working directly with business owners—understanding their story, what they were building and what they wanted to achieve.
Five years in Mackay and Central Queensland
Josh moved to Mackay to broaden his experience across the resources, agricultural and regional business sectors, while also gaining experience with different major banks.
Over five years, Josh worked across Commonwealth Bank, NAB and ANZ in commercial, business and agribusiness banking roles.
This was one of the most formative periods of his career. His work included:
Supporting multigenerational cattle businesses with lending requirements ranging from approximately $1 million to $30 million
Working with small and large mining contractors across equipment, labour, maintenance and support services
Helping resource-sector businesses fund growth and manage significant working-capital requirements
Working within lending portfolios recognised for their asset finance, debtor finance and trade finance capabilities
Supporting businesses developing new products and entering new markets
Assisting intensive agricultural businesses, including aquaculture and horticulture operators
Working with clients whose interests extended across agriculture, property and other commercial industries
Supporting local accountants, lawyers and financial planners with their own lending, growth and succession requirements
Assisting medical professionals with the particular finance challenges and opportunities associated with regional practice
Expanding his experience in hospitality and licensed clubs and understanding the important role these businesses play in regional communities
Leading banking teams and helping grow lender presence and reputation across Central Queensland
Advocating for the industries and communities of Central Queensland
The Mackay experience significantly expanded Josh’s industry knowledge and reinforced the importance of having a finance adviser who understands both the numbers and the commercial realities behind them.
Business banking in Brisbane
Josh later moved to Brisbane to lead, rebuild and expand a business banking portfolio.
The role allowed him to work with larger business and family groups across multiple industries. It also increased his exposure to businesses embracing technology, digital platforms and social media as part of their growth strategies.
During this period, Josh further developed his experience in real estate agency and rent-roll finance, including funding for acquisitions, expansion, succession and ownership restructures.
However, he became increasingly frustrated by the limitations of working within one bank.
A single lender could not always provide the best solution across a client’s commercial facilities, home loans, property investments and future plans. Changes in relationship managers, credit appetite and internal policy could also disrupt an otherwise strong long-term banking relationship.
That experience led Josh to establish JLH Finance Advisory.
Why Josh established JLH Finance
Josh founded JLH Finance to provide the continuity, personal involvement and broader lender access that can be difficult to achieve through a single bank.
The objective was to build a finance business centred on the client relationship—not an individual lender or product.
JLH takes the time to understand where a client has come from, their current financial position and what they want to achieve next. Josh then translates that story into a finance strategy that lenders and their credit teams can understand.
This can involve more than finding an interest rate. Depending on the transaction, Josh’s role may include:
Reviewing existing business and personal debt
Interpreting financial statements and management accounts
Assessing cash flow, gearing and debt-servicing capacity
Understanding complex company, trust and ownership structures
Modelling alternative lending structures
Identifying lender-policy risks before an application is submitted
Preparing detailed lender submissions and supporting analysis
Comparing bank, non-bank and specialist lender options
Negotiating pricing, security, loan terms and approval conditions
Coordinating with accountants, lawyers, financial planners and other advisers
Managing the application from initial strategy through to approval and settlement
Reviewing the finance structure as the client’s position changes
Who Josh works with today
Since establishing JLH Finance, Josh has worked with clients across a diverse range of personal, commercial and investment finance requirements.
Business owners
Josh assists small and medium-sized businesses seeking finance for:
Working capital
Business growth
Commercial property
Equipment and vehicles
Business acquisitions
Refinancing and debt restructuring
Succession and ownership changes
Trade and debtor finance
Preparing a business for growth or sale
Many of these clients first approach JLH after becoming frustrated that their bank no longer understands their business, their industry or what they are trying to achieve.
Josh can also provide ongoing finance advisory and debt-management support to businesses that need greater internal finance capability but do not require a full-time finance professional.
Self-employed clients
Self-employed borrowers often generate income in ways that do not translate neatly into a standard home-loan application.
Josh helps explain the relationship between business profit, director remuneration, distributions, retained earnings and other income sources. He also works with clients who have loans or assets held through companies, trusts and other complex structures.
Rather than looking at one tax return or one loan in isolation, Josh considers the client’s wider business and personal position.
Professional services firms
Drawing on his experience supporting professional-service portfolios within the banks, Josh works with accountants, lawyers, financial planners and other advisory firms on:
Practice acquisitions
Partner or shareholder buy-ins
Working-capital requirements
Business premises
Growth finance
Succession
Ownership restructures
Personal property and wealth-building finance
Medical professionals and healthcare businesses
Josh assists medical professionals and healthcare businesses with finance for:
Establishing or acquiring practices
Practice growth and equipment
Commercial premises
Home and investment property purchases
Restructuring personal and business lending
Building long-term personal wealth
He understands that the lending needs of a medical professional can extend well beyond a standard “medico home loan.”
Real estate agencies and rent rolls
JLH works with real estate agency owners on:
Rent-roll acquisitions
Agency acquisitions
Partner buy-ins and buy-outs
Succession planning
Working capital
Refinancing and restructuring existing facilities
Commercial and personal property finance
Resource-sector businesses
Josh’s Central Queensland experience provides him with a practical understanding of the resource and mining-services sectors.
He works with contractors and supporting businesses on equipment, working capital, growth and refinancing requirements. He can also help clients navigate changing lender appetite and environmental, social and governance policies that may affect access to funding.
Agribusiness and diversified operators
Josh continues to work with agricultural businesses and clients whose income and assets extend across both agriculture and commercial operations.
These clients can be difficult to place when one banking team understands agriculture but not the client’s commercial operations—or a commercial banker does not understand seasonal agricultural income and assets.
Josh’s experience across both areas enables him to understand the complete position and communicate it clearly to a lender.
High-net-worth and private clients
Josh works with high-net-worth individuals, professionals and family groups to structure and manage:
Home loans
Investment property debt
Complex personal lending
Property portfolios
Debt held across multiple entities
Connections between personal wealth and business finance
The focus is not simply on securing the next loan. It is on developing a structure that supports the client’s broader financial position and future plans.
Private equity and large family groups
Josh also assists private equity firms, investors and large family groups in navigating the funding requirements of their business investments.
These transactions can involve complex ownership structures, multiple income sources and the need to coordinate personal, property and operating-business debt.
A consistent adviser in a changing banking environment
A number of Josh’s clients have worked with him for more than 10 years, with some relationships extending to approximately 15 years.
During that time, clients may have changed banks several times or dealt with numerous relationship managers. Josh remains the consistent adviser who understands their history, existing structure and future objectives.
He can help introduce and manage new banking relationships, explain the background to previous decisions and ensure the client does not have to start their story again each time a bank changes personnel.
This continuity allows clients to spend more time focused on their business, profession or investments while knowing that someone continues to understand and manage the finance strategy behind them.
Education:
Saint Ignatius College (Riverview) – 1995 to 2000
The University Of Queensland – 2003 to 2006 – Bachelor of Agricultural Economics
University of New England – 2002 to 2003 – Bachelor of Agricultural Economics
Pimley & Pimley – 2010 - Corporate and Commercial Banking
Work:
Australian Food and Fibre – 1997 to 2006 – Farm hand – Cotton and Wheat - Moree
NAB Agribusiness Banking – Dubbo and Bourke 2006 to 2010
NAB Corporate Finance – Sydney - 2010 to 2011
NAB Business Banking – Sydney - 2011 to 2012
CBA – Commercial and Agribusiness - Mackay – 2012 to 2014
NAB – Business Banking – Mackay - 2014 to 2015
ANZ – Business Banking – Mackay and Brisbane - 2017 to 2020
JLH Finance – Director – 2020 to current
Community:
Mackay Chamber of Commerce – 2015 to 2017 - Board Member
Brisbane Racing Club Member – 2019 to Current
Norths Devils Junior Rugby League – Coach 2022
Weebolla Bulls Rugby Union – Player – 2000 to 2002
Rob Rams Rugby Union – Player – 2002
Bourke Rams Rugby Union – Player – 2007
Dubbo Roo’s Rugby Union – Player – 2008
Central North Rugby Union Representative – 2001
Central West Rugby Union Representative – 2007
New England Rugby Union Representative – 2002
Member:
Connective Mortgage Broker – 2020 to current
MFAA Member – 2020 to current
APRA Member - 2020 to current
Australian Credit Licence Holder - 2020 to current
