Sign up for our e-newsletter

How offering mortgage advice can add value and boost transactions

Handing business to mortgage brokers can help to boost your bottom line and improve your clients’ experience, with good knock-on effects

Generating business in this sector in the current climate is a challenge, to say the least, but there are ways you can maximise your income to help offset your reduced transactions.

There is no denying that the credit crunch has had a devastating effect on the mortgage arena, particularly for prospective buyers - a lack of affordable mortgages has meant that many, particularly those with little or no deposit, have had to postpone their dreams of homeownership until the market recovers.

Affordability

This is because lenders’ own funding costs have increased.

So they have raised their loan rates and tightened their lending criteria, to ensure that their customers are able to comfortably repay their loans.

Nevertheless, the good news is that there are still plenty of mortgages out there.

Hence the importance of independent mortgage advice - a service that can easily be offered as part of estate agents’ wider service offering.

If successfully integrated, mortgage advice can add real value to agents’ businesses, such as in helping win instructions and obtaining price reductions; closing deals; breaking chains, should agents need to; qualifying buyers to an excellent level; instructing quick valuations; managing cases through to offer, exchange and completion; and generating additional revenue.

Potential sales

Of course, the opportunity to earn additional income in this economic climate is invaluable.

This is how the opportunity presented by independent mortgage advice works. If an agent sells eight houses a month there are 16 potential mortgage sales.

For the purpose of this example, let’s take an average mortgage of £250,000 and assume that a mortgage broker will pay 25% of his total income by way of a referral fee to an introducer, ie. you.

It can mean an additional £600 from mortgage referrals alone, for each case that you successfully refer, with a 50% conversion rate resulting in an additional £4,800 in income.

Yet, if only it were as easy as that. There are some fundamentals that agents must follow to make mortgage broking a successful part of their offering. Firstly, brokers must be a part of an agent’s team, not just a bystander who has an office or a desk in the corner of the premises that they think about every once in a while.

Value of brokers

Brokers must be involved in all team meetings and briefed on all opportunities. Agents must believe in the value brokers are adding to their business - if brokers are not convinced about their place in an agent’s branch, chances are agents’ clients will have their doubts, too.

Agents should be confident in promoting the benefits of independent mortgage advice, since it is a service consumers genuinely need.

In fact, our own enquiry levels are up a staggering 39% year-on-year, which proves that consumers need value-added services now more than ever. Consumers are increasingly seeking advice to ensure they secure the most suitable and costeffective mortgage deal for them - it is, after all, the largest financial commitment most of us are ever likely to make in our lives.

• About Us
• Subscribe to the magazine
• Advertising
• Contact Us
• Terms and conditions
• Privacy Statement