Total lending for the six months to June 30 2011 stood at £141m, compared with £67m in the same period last year.
Andrew Frankish, managing director at Mortgage Talk, said that the acquisition with the Mortgage Bureau has helped push up the margin of new homes sales.
He said: “Before our partnership with Mortgage Bureau last year, it was a competitor business specialising in new homes, so merging with it has allowed us to benefit from their expertise by forming a sister company trading in the midlands region.
“The other thing we have done is develop our existing relationships with builders including the Barratt Group, Persimmon Homes and Taylor Wimpey, and used word of mouth to increase key relationships in new regions.
“We have a service agreement with those developers that allows us to provide clarity over a customer’s position, and give their customers the ability to move forward with a purchase.
“These developers will put potential homebuyers in touch with us, the advantage to that developer is that we can help those homebuyers move forward with a purchase, which is particularly advantageous where timescales need to be met.”
Mortgage Bureau was previously called the Mortgage Stop and is currently a directly authorised firm.
Frankish added that the businesses expect an equally productive second half to 2011 with the number of affordable housing schemes on the up and the launch of FirstBuy Direct.
“New homes remains a challenging market, however lender partners are now seeing the benefits of some quality business that allows them to achieve a good margin.”
Mortgage Bureau director, Mark Clouston added: “The new build market is vitally important to the economy as a whole and it is our job to make sure that the potential customers of our builder contacts are given the best service and advice that the industry has to offer.”
