#25: Alisha Scappin: From Floor Plans to Financial Plans
Today's guest went from designing ice cream parlours with crayons at age six... to designing bespoke kitchens on the Gold Coast... to running marketing for one of Australia's biggest real estate brands, before finally landing where she was always meant to be.
Alisha Scappin is the founder of Allora Finance, a Brisbane-based brokerage she launched in February 2020, just weeks before COVID shut the world down. With zero finance background, no safety net, and a partner who casually asked on a New Zealand holiday, "Would you ever become a mortgage broker?", Alisha backed herself and made the leap.
Since then, she's been named Harcourts' #1 Mortgage Broker for QLD and SA three years running, and ranked 4th nationally through Mortgage Express in 2024. She's built a small team of new-to-industry brokers, rebranded to Allora Finance (a nod to her Italian heritage) and turned a bad first home buyer experience of her own into the reason she fights so hard for her clients today.
This chat covers humble hospo beginnings, a dad who once served Elton John, kitchen benchtops, corporate pivots across three cities, and the moment on January 4th that changed everything.
10 Mar 2026
#24: Will Miles: From Odd Jobs to Unconditional Approval
Will Miles didn't have a plan. He had a Target uniform, a carpentry certificate, and a mate who kept talking about property.
Growing up in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, Will bounced through business at Swinburne, picked up carpentry at TAFE, and worked the odd job here and there Village Cinemas, the tools, whatever came next.
It wasn't until his best mate pulled him into the world of property and finance that something finally clicked.
A loan processor role taught him how the machine worked from the inside. COVID kept him at his desk long enough to learn it properly. And when a chaotic lead-gen business started imploding around him, he and two mates Azem and Jakob decided to do it themselves.
OVM Finance Group launched in 2022. Four years later, they're still at it fully remote, flexibly run, and quietly doing serious numbers.
This one's for anyone who took the long way round.
1 Mar 2026
#23: Kane Dury: From Posting Orders to Purchase Orders
Kane Dury joined the Australian Army the week after 9/11, spent 12 years working his way up to Sergeant, and was quietly buying investment properties the whole time.
After the Army came the mines, then mortgage broking on the Gold Coast — built from scratch, one late night at a time.
When the Royal Commission threw the industry into chaos, Kane kept going. When a remuneration change wiped out his income overnight at a buyers agency he'd planned to stay at forever, he and his wife Nadia quit the same day and launched Discover Buyers Agency from nothing.
In this episode, Kane talks about what the military teaches you that no office job ever could, why he loved 80% of broking but couldn't make peace with the other 20%, and how 300 transactions in two years as a buyers agent made the pivot feel effortless.
He also gets into why ADF members are leaving serious money on the table — and what he's doing about it.
A honest yarn about patience, backing yourself, and finding the career that was always waiting for you.
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