The lender contacted 400 brokers and IFAs, and found that 85 per cent of respondents are receiving enquires regarding commercial mortgages.
However, the survey also revealed 10 per cent of brokers who had received these enquiries had no facilities to process them, whether in-house or by referring the client to a specialist commercial broker.
This, according to Commercial First’s sales and marketing director, Stephen Johnson, means brokers are missing out on potential business and introductory fees.
He said: “The survey findings support our view that demand for commercial mortgages via the intermediary market is widespread and set to grow fast. Intermediaries can offer product choice and service benefits to commercial mortgage borrowers that they could not hope to achieve by going direct to lenders, so it is disappointing that 10 per cent of brokers are ignoring enquiries about commercial mortgages and losing out on introduction fees.”
Currently only 25 per cent of brokers who processed enquiries themselves do more than half of their business in the sector, while 63 per cent believe they do less than 20 per cent.
Loanoptions.co.uk has recently moved into commercial mortgages and managing director Andy Moody said he is excited about the future.
He said: “ÃŽt could be as big a part of our business as our secured loan section and we’ve been trying to emphasise that, by turning potential commercial business away, we not only lose the client in this area but we fail to build the relationship with them which could see them return for other services later.”
