Mortgage News
The recovery starts here
A strange thing happened at our latest IMLA members’ meeting this month. For the first time in over three years, we sat around a table and agreed that most of us have money to lend and that we would like to lend some more.
We discussed products and distribution, innovation and niche markets. We are looking to lend and are starting to get creative about how we go about it.
The clear message that members wanted to get across to the intermediary community is that we are open for business. There are opportunities for intermediaries to work with lenders to identify markets and opportunities – essentially, to move forward after the problems of the credit crunch.
Intermediaries have endured a poor press and have suffered from an underserved reputation for low quality service.
But, on the whole, intermediaries do a fantastic job and deliver a service no other channel can achieve – easy and affordable access to advice. They can, and do, survey the whole market across many lenders and hundreds of products, enriching choice for consumers and stimulating competition.
Lenders selling direct simply cannot do this, however good their own products and services may be.
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Working together, lenders and intermediaries do a great job for the consumer and it is about time that we got on the front foot.
If lenders are once again innovating and ready to lend, we need to ensure that this message is communicated to intermediaries. There are mortgage options available for borrowers that were not there up until recently and there will be more coming down the line.
Intermediaries can once again start to think about marketing their own services; searching their databases for clients with requirements that match available products.
This is the start of the recovery, but the momentum can build quickly.
John Heron is chairman of IMLA