Chief executive Grenville Turner told The Mortgage Event in Bristol today that brokers should be confident in their place in the mortgage market and that the tide was turning in their favour.
He revealed that Countrywide plans to expand its 650-strong broker force by 5% to 10% next year to take advantage of the opportunities available.
Yet, Turner said that he believed that the volume of business advisers are doing will increase, rather than overall broker numbers, meaning good news for intermediaries already in the market.
He said: “Most lenders have realised that it doesn’t matter how many incentives they give their staff or how much dual pricing they do, they still can’t sell mortgages to their customers.
“For decades, customers have looked to advisers for help and that will not change.
“I would be very surprised if the intermediaries share of the mortgage sector is not bigger next year compared to this.”
Turner added: “Lenders have realised that brokers are vital and we are the only real source of volume. That should give us confidence going forward.”
However, Turner did not shy away from highlighting to delegates the significant challenges facing the market as a whole, such as the continuing eurozone crisis, lack of economic growth, increasing funding costs affecting mortgage costs, and depressed gross mortgage lending.
Nevertheless, he maintained that brokers should embrace it as an opportunity.
“We have survived the worst recession any one of us has ever experienced. That is because we are getting better at what we do and we have learnt from it. We have survived four years of a sector operating at half its previous level. That deserves credit.
“The firms that really make a difference are the ones that learn how to survive and how to grow in a distressed environment like this,” he said.
On regualtion, Turner added: “The regulatory environment is not going to get easier; it’s going to get worse. But the firms that have survived have learned to live with that and operate within it. We shouldn’t be afraid of regulation.”
Follow all the Tweets from The Mortgage Event here
