The Mortgage Mum Specialist Finance discusses the market and its upcoming developments within the years forward.
Speaking to this publication, Shelley Walker (pictured), director of The Mortgage Mum Specialist Finance, mentioned that there was a “lot of positivity” since its launch, with shoppers coming to the corporate immediately, and brokers and brokerages referring into it as properly.
“We’re having a decent number of leads come forward for secured loans, bridging and commercial enquiries, and there’s an emerging market now for developers as well. So, it’s really positive strides in the first six months.”
Regarding referrals, she mentioned it was a “complexity and expertise issue” that led brokers to refer circumstances to it, and it has experience on self-build initiatives and round overseas buyers.
“It’s an area where other brokers might be more restricted about who’s on their panel and what their permissions are under their network. We can give that more personalised touch and service,” she mentioned.
She mentioned that, on the again of this demand, it was about to launch a “recruitment drive” to convey brokers and assist workers on board.
“We need to now get in new brokers and additional support staff to really take us forward,” she mentioned.
The Mortgage Mum launched its specialist finance arm, The Mortgage Mum Specialist Finance, in October final yr. At the time, the agency mentioned it will concentrate on improvement finance, industrial purchase to let (BTL), bridging finance, adversarial credit score, complicated BTL and loans for high-net-worth people.
The firm presently consists of three brokers within the specialist arm, with Walker including that she want to have one other three brokers within the 12 months, together with para-planning and administrative assist as properly.
Developers shall be an enormous alternative
Talking about what the agency was seeing on the bottom, Walker mentioned that it was “very mixed”, with a combination of longer-term and shorter-term offers.
“You can have a lot of conversations with people about their plans for their businesses, but then that takes quite a long time, but then when they need it, it converts really quickly at the end,” she defined.
“The completions we’re having are obviously more around secured loans and bridging because that is the faster end of the market, but certainly the enquiries are largely around development, self-build and bridging.”
Walker mentioned that it was growing a “niche” round overseas buyers with a whole lot of enquiries coming from this space, in addition to specialist BTL.
“The areas of growth and the opportunities that I see are around developers, so whether that’s commercial conversions, houses in multiple occupation (HMO) conversions or leading on to the much larger development sites,” she mentioned.
When requested about lender innovation, Walker defined that aspirational buyers can face hurdles, as generally upfront charges in areas like bridging might be fairly “challenging”.
“For people who are asset-rich and cash-poor, for them to raise £4,000 to £5,000 to complete a transaction can be a big challenge. So, a bit more innovation around that, maybe some shared risk, rather than that all being a risk for the client,” she mentioned.
On the BTL aspect, Walker mentioned that she want to see a fall in charges, including that, as charges had been falling, so was the danger for lenders. She instructed fixed-fee-type offers.
Within improvement, she mentioned that there could possibly be challenges round mortgage to worth (LTV) restrictions, so “some flexibility on that as the risks become lower across the market”.
Collaboration would be the focus this yr
Walker mentioned that “this year will be a year of collaboration and looking at other women that are working in this sector, what their offer is and how we can complement each other and work together”.
“We see collaboration, not competition, so we want to work with other women to support them and develop their businesses as well while we’re developing ours,” she added.
Walker mentioned that it additionally has a “keen eye on aspirational investors”, so folks on the “start of their journey”.
“I’ve had several clients already that have come to me saying other brokers won’t help them because they might be at that lower end. As a business owner, it would obviously be great if everyone came with a multimillion-pound development on day one, but it’s that nurture journey that we take people on, so wanting to really hold their hand or support them through that process,” she added.
Walker continued: “I think it is all about partnerships here, because I think it’s easy to be the jack of all trades and the master of none and you can become a busy fool in this space. I think better to have some really good quality lenders with some good quality brokers that can offer that really personalised service to clients and who can look at them as a person, not just a deal.”
She mentioned that, for shoppers with fairly complicated portfolios, they want a “strategic review of their whole investment strategy”.
“That’s the role of a specialist broker as far as I’m concerned, it isn’t about a ‘wham bam, I’ll get your bridge and we’re done’ kind of scenario. It’s really that ‘What are you trying to achieve here? What’s your investment plan and your journey and, what’s the endgame that you’re trying to get to?’” Walker added.
She mentioned generally that story may get missed if brokers had been extra “deal-led”, so the tradition round specialist lending was necessary to incorporate that.
“We’re invested in people, not each individual deal,” Walker mentioned.
Anna is a reporter for Mortgage Solutions and assistant editor for Specialist Lending Solutions, each B2B sister titles of YourMoney.com. She has labored as a journalist for over 4 years, initially within the specialty insurance coverage sector earlier than shifting onto mortgages.
