This is partly because they sometimes have to send tearful would-be home owners back to the starting line after recalibrating their loan application to fit the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA).

That is on top of pre-existing problems, like years of runaway housing inflation outstripping the ability of young people to save for a deposit.

The problem is more apparent because brokers are becoming the port of first call for increasing numbers of home buyers.

One bank revealed late last year that 46% of its new business came from advisers, up from 42% the previous year and 40% the year before that.

This growth is because banks are progressively shutting down their branches, believing rents, rates and insurance for actual buildings can cost more than paying a finders fee to a broker.

The consequence of this is that mortgage advisers are the new front line for would-be house buyers, and so have to deal with disappointed people all the time.

“I keep a box of tissues in my office,” said one adviser, Glen McLeod of Edge Mortgages.

The trouble is that buying a home is not like buying the groceries, it is a dream and a passion for many young people, and absorbs their emotional energy.

“I want a home for my children,” one young woman said, “I am like a bird wanting a nest for its chicks.”

But a nest can be priced like a palace these days.  And rents are so high that it is hard for many young people to save for a deposit.

Rupert Gough of The Mortgage Lab says loan applicants who come into his office are having to be nurtured far more than previously.

And their problems are made worse by the CCCFA. Thanks to those rules, only about 20% of applicants for a mortgage get approval within six months, compared with 50% to 60% previously.

Gough says that means his clients need to be treated with extra care, and advisers need to work hard on their behalf.

“There is bad news being presented on a monthly basis,” Gough said.

“But for us, the task is to provide loan applicants with a solution rather than just telling them they can't do it.

“We put them on a bit of an education programme so they can work towards getting a mortgage.”

What this means is that mortgage brokers can sometimes be forced to act as counsellor for unhappy people and not just a hard-boiled money merchant counting the change.

Gough and McLeod are not the only brokers to experience this. Another is Elyce Peters, of Christchurch's all-women firm, The Mortgage Girls.

“In our job we are dealing with people's hopes, dreams and fears, and in our company we are committed to helping our clients attain their dreams,” Peters said.

“It's about giving them a few pep talks, helping them keep on track to achieve their dreams and helping to support them when things aren't going right.

“The number of times I have had clients in tears would be too many to count.”

Glen McLeod of Edge Mortgages says giving care and attention towards a client has always been a requirement of advisers, but the problem has been intensified by the CCCFA.

“I have a box of tissues in my office, because it is an emotional thing for my clients when they are trying to get a home loan. It is hard for them.

“In my job I am a financial adviser, not a mortgage broker, I am there to assist people with getting into their first home, or following a dream.”

But under the new rules, he often had to say sorry, you can't do that, to his clients. And this responsibility fell on his shoulders more than ever, because banks themselves did not give advice, they just said yes or no to a loan.

“But we can't do that, as an adviser. We are always giving advice, we have to, we can't opt out of it, but we are doing it for the benefit of the client.

“We aren't the hard-boiled money man, we are there to help the client find a path, and sometimes, finding that path means we have to give out some hard truths.”

Peters says the would-be home buyer is often not the cause of the problems that shatter their dreams. They are often completely innocent, but still have to suffer as their goal of owning a home disappears over the horizon.

And it was not just first-time home buyers who endured this ordeal, she said. In some cases, harsh lending rules could thwart efforts by a person who had lost a family member and wanted to buy out the other siblings.

Other victims included survivors of a hostile divorce, who were in the throes of their life falling apart, who faced losing the home they had lived in for years.

“I remember sitting with a client and I was nearly in tears as well, listening to what she had been going through,” Peters said.

Many of these problems were aggravated by high house prices, limits on high LVR loans and the Byzantine rules of the CCCFA.

McLeod cited an example of how costly all this could be to ordinary people.

“I had a case a few months ago where I gained approval for a loan of just on $1 million. We came to do the rollover after December 1, and because it hadn't been done under the CCCFA, we had to make a new application and follow the CCCFA rules.

“We then got an updated approval for $530,000. These people were completely crushed by that.”

McLeod blamed the halving of his client's loan on that old CCCFA bugbear: everyday consumer spending turning up as part of a client's outgoings.

McLeod cited another case which appeared to defy logic.

“I have just spoken to a client who wanted to buy a property at $1.2 million and had $800,000 of deposit, and I had to say 'You can't buy at $1.2 million, you can only buy at $1 million'.

“The affordability rules did not allow the client to do it at $1.2 million.”

Problems like these led to a chorus of complaints that forced the Government to review the CCCFA when it was little more than a month old.

A first tranche of changes was announced in March. They included removing consumer spending like cups of coffee from a list of would-be borrowers' pre-loan expenses, as long as robust financial data from other sources was available.

They also included removal of savings or investment payments from a person's list of expenses.

Soon after these changes were announced, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) indicated the changes would be in place by June.

Many brokers have said those proposed changes did go far enough and were too slow in coming.

In the meantime, the whole problem of house buying is hard work for both customer and broker, according to another financial practitioner, Geoff Bawden of the Q Adviser Group.

He stops short of seeing the same emotional side of things as McLeod, but he has plenty of objections to the current regime all the same, saying it imposes costs and difficulties on ordinary people who are simply trying to live their lives.

“I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people in the compliance arena tell me that the cost of compliance to the adviser is not their problem,” Bawden wrote on Linked In.

“Well wake up and smell the roses – it is. The New Zealand market is made up of a host of sole practitioners, the bulk of whom have always given very honest and sound advice to their clients. You make it so expensive that it no longer becomes viable for them to operate and they will leave the Industry. That is not in the consumer’s best interests!”

Interviewed later, Bawden said he had issues with the practicality of some changes, particularly around the CCCFA, but not just around the CCCFA.

“Every time there is a legislative change, the banks bring in a host of new forms and expectations.

“And I have a huge issue around the fact that there has been a total disregard by everyone associated with the regulatory regime about the actual cost of what has been imposed.

“Almost all advisers in New Zealand are sole practitioners. They might belong to a group but they are still self employed business people and they still have to absorb their own expenses, and those expenses continue to escalate, with no sign of backing off.”

Yet the problem was even worse for clients than for their advisers.

“Let me give you a practical example. I spoke to an existing client of mine just the other day, financially very strong, with a secure employment position, and a huge amount of equity in the home.

“This client was planning a self-build, and knew they were going to be put through the mill. And it got to the point where they said it was too hard, we just won't do it.”

And so how did he deal with this huge potential for disappointment that crosses his path?

“You've got to be transparent, you've got to tell them what's involved, you've got to tell them this is the process we will need to follow through to the end.

“Buying houses is an emotional decision for people. I have never had to have a box of tissues, but you do have to have a very honest and open communication with your client.

“It is really hard when you are looking at an existing client who has had an exemplary history with the bank, who has had borrowings before and you know they have never missed a payment, and yet you know they are going to get absolutely grilled on everything they have spent.”

The full range of CCCFA reforms are still in a state of flux. Meanwhile, a five-year housing boom is levelling off and are set to fall in many places.

While that will ease the pressure on some people, it will be offset for many by higher interest rates, which could make life even harder for brokers and buyers than it is now.

In the meantime, says Peters, there is a risk of the number of mortgagee sales increasing from its recent low level.

She fears that could only add to the pressures associated with the traditional dream of people owning the house they live in rather than paying rent to their landlord.