Its results represent a 27% increase in profits compared to last year which has been achieved on top of significant investment across the business since the beginning of the year.
Adrian Scott, Connells Group mortgage services director, said: “We’ve had a strong start to 2012 buoyed by continued investment into our Mortgage Services division and greater activity across the housing market for both new homes and second hand properties.
“Strong demand from first-time buyers in the first quarter of the year made a significant contribution to our results, alongside the close partnerships we maintain with our panel of lenders based on the quality, high volume business we can deliver.”
Connells Group has boosted its headcount of mortgage consultants by 18%, from 389 to 460, at the end of June 2012 when compared to the same point in 2011.
It placed £2.1bn of lending through its highly controlled mortgage operation in the first half of 2012 on behalf of lenders.
Connells Group has continued to invest across the business including new lettings branches, the expansion of its estate agency sales centre GEM and a 25% strategic stake in innovative property fund manager Hearthstone Investments which recently received FSA approval for the UK’s first regulated residential property fund.
Midlands-based estate agency Burchell Edwards, which the Connells Group acquired at the end of 2011, is making its first contribution to profits.
Scott added: “Yet again the Connells Group is producing outstanding results in what continues to be a challenging housing market.
“We are seeing growing demand for mortgage advice from our customers across all areas in 2012; first-time buyers remain active despite the end of the Stamp Duty holiday and home movers have regained confidence which is translating into sales.
“Buy-to-let mortgage activity also remains strong and we expect this to remain the case for the rest of the year.
“Our figures show a 49% increase in buy-to-let activity in Q2 2012 compared to Q2 in 2011.”
