Just imagine if he was.
There’s no doubt he would be have been a very ethical broker and I daresay his PI insurance costs would have been negligible.
However, the downside to engaging Aristotle’s services would have been the nine-hour fact find meeting, while he veered between gaining your personal information and pausing to discuss substance, potentiality and actuality.
I can only begin to imagine how many times he must have been timed out of his DIPs!
But let’s leave Aristotle CEMAP in the realm of fantasy for now and just concentrate on one of his most famous quotes:
“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”
This phrase has been at the forefront of my mind over the past few weeks. I started a conversation about the importance of mortgage brokers, particularly those who are directly authorised, standing together, to ensure we can be heard above the general cacophony of the industry.
Not for profit mortgage club
The concept is to form a not for profit mortgage club for directly authorised brokers, with an annual fee for membership, but with the broker receiving 100% of the procuration fee quoted on the mortgage offer. I won’t use this platform to debate the pros and cons of mortgage clubs, we can do that another time. What I will share with you though is what I have learned on this short journey so far.
So far, no one has provided a strong argument as to why this is a bad idea. Furthermore, it’s been eye opening to realise that, lenders don’t quite appreciate how the clubs operate, nor how we are, to a degree, compromised by them. I was disconcerted to hear of the cosy arrangements that the current model is offering.
Oh, and just to be clear, this cosiness? Sorry, not for your benefit. No, in many respects we are that unwanted drunken Uncle that no one wants to come visit them this Christmas.
Stronger together
I’ve also learned in this process just how much we, as individual brokers, must offer.
If only we could somehow close that gap that exists between us.
In fact, and I appreciate I am going to sound like a madman here, we could possibly create a business that might be might value at £50,000,000.
“What?!?!! Have you been on the mulled wine since August Martin?!?”
Bear with me.
London & Country, the largest mortgage brokerage in the UK, are mooting a £300m company flotation. So far as I can tell they arrange £8bn of lending and generate a profit of £8m.
“What has that got to do with me?”
Well, the 35 firms who have expressed an interest in the DA Alliance Mortgage Club, collectively write £2 billion of lending and arrange over 7500 mortgages, each year. Arguably, they also offer more comprehensive, UK wide, coverage. I don’t know what their profitability is but we can err on the side of caution and guess at a quarter of what London & Country make.
“Oh, I see…I think.”
I am connecting the dots up very quickly. But what’s wrong with a little big picture thinking?
As individuals or small firms, we will forever struggle to gain traction, we’ll always be the small fish in a big pond. Everyone thinks they own a brand, but the reality is no one has heard of any of us. I prove this point to myself, by regularly asking people outside of the industry to name me three mortgage brokerage brands.
A few manage one but rarely get much further.
I even recently volunteered the name of a firm to someone who was struggling. Their response? “Oh yes! They’ve just arranged our mortgage”. That’s a major fail for that firm’s Brand Awareness Consultant; which I suspect they do employ.
I am not asking everyone to throw their car keys in to the fruit bowl – we all know how that can end up being unfair to some!
The point I am trying to make here however, is that the gap between where some of us are in business, to what we can ACHIEVE, is actually a lot smaller than we may think.
I love the scene in Lord of The Rings: Return of the King when the final battle for Middle Earth is about to commence. The various tribes and collectives all begin to light their beacons across the land. The message? Yes, we hear you, yes, we will stand up to be counted.
Why can’t we, as proud mortgage brokers, do the same thing?
I’ll leave you with another quote:
“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
That’s not me speaking, that’s Gandalf