The people behind Ascent

Casey Taylor

Casey has built a personal property portfolio of 12 properties worth circa $10 million. That matters here for a specific reason: the ceilings our clients run into are ones he has hit himself, and worked out how to get past.

He also founded and leads Taylored Property Wealth, a buyer's agency recognised nationally as a finalist for REB Buyer's Agent of the Year in 2026.

Ascent exists because of a pattern he kept seeing. Investors would come to him ready to buy their next property, only to find that the loans behind the first two had quietly used up their capacity. Nothing had gone wrong exactly — each loan had been arranged sensibly, one at a time, by someone who was never asked about the fourth purchase.

Ascent was built to ask that question first, and to structure lending as the architecture a portfolio is built on rather than a transaction to be repeated.

Adrian Hanson

Before becoming a mortgage broker, Adrian spent years inside the commercial banking system — managing a portfolio of over $150 million in commercial lending and working directly with business owners and sophisticated investors. He saw firsthand how banks assess risk, where applications succeed, and where they quietly fail.

That insider knowledge is what makes Adrian different. He doesn't just submit a loan application and hope for the best. He structures your lending the way a senior banker thinks — anticipating the questions lenders will ask before they ask them.

Adrian's background in accounting laid the foundation. His move into commercial banking sharpened his eye for cash flow, tax implications and long-term portfolio strategy. Today, those skills are fully directed toward one goal: helping clients build wealth through property — whether that's a first home, a growing investment portfolio, or a complex refinancing strategy.

He works across the full range — first-time investors taking their initial step, established clients expanding a portfolio, and those planning to retire within the next five to ten years. The lending is matched to the goal and the risk profile, not the other way round.

He also invests himself. Adrian holds three properties in his own name worth over $2.2 million — so the structuring decisions he recommends are ones he has made with his own money.

Chaz Hanson

Retired from racing. Now specialises in sleeping through meetings and greeting anyone who makes it through the door.

Chaz came to the role with no finance background and has shown no interest in developing one. What he brings instead is an unshakeable commitment to the eight-hour nap, punctuated by snoring loud enough to be audible on client calls. We have stopped apologising for it.

Greyhounds are the fastest dogs on earth and, in Chaz's considered view, the laziest. He will sprint the length of the office at no notice, then collapse onto the nearest soft surface as though nothing happened — the only member of the team whose energy management strategy actually works.

He has never originated a loan, structured a portfolio or read a credit policy. He has also never missed a day, and no client has ever left the office in a worse mood than they arrived.