The new facility, which analyses and compares all mortgage costs including interest and fees, is now available within both the full Home Buyer System and the HBSLite version. The fee analysis empowers advisers to demonstrate their professional skills, and enables them to gain agreement with the customer for a fee to be paid. The lenders in question are only shown and discussed after the fees have been agreed.
Responding to on-going market conditions where direct-to-lender products are generally cheaper for the borrower than intermediary based products, the new Home Buyer fee analysis feature enables brokers to search the entire mortgage market using sourcing information from Defaqto and then produce a comparison, which finds the cheapest direct-to-lender product and the cheapest intermediary product. This system enables brokers to demonstrate which product provides the best value, taking into account the fee that the customer will pay them. In many cases - especially those with an LTV of more than 75% - even taking into account the adviser’s fee the direct product will still be less expensive. For lower LTVs, the analysis may well demonstrate that the intermediary product provides the best value The facility for advisers to enter their own fees into the comparison calculation enables a fair like-for-like comparison to be made between direct-to-lender and intermediary products, automatically demonstrating which product offers the best value for customers.
Once the fee analysis has been produced, the research report showing the options available is then printed and the customer selects which option they want to proceed on. The system will print an IDD which sets out the options to save the Adviser having to produce one of their own, providing the necessary proof needed for FSA compliance purposes. Home Buyer System and HBSLite already generate all the documentation needed for brokers to introduce direct products, including fee agreements, customer permissions for the broker to act on their behalf with the lender, and KFIs.
Richard Angliss, managing director of Home Buyer Systems, commented “We have built the new fee analysis facility in response to customer demand, as more and more firms are realising that they need to charge customers for their professional skills, and that they need an income that is not at the mercy of lenders.
“We found that our customers who were successfully charging fees were using a fee justification analysis to enable them to make charging fees a natural part of their approach. The problem for them was that it was taking a lot of time and effort. The new Home Buyer facility has broken new ground in giving brokers the tools to demonstrate their worth to customers in accurate figures at the click of a button.
“The pilot stage has also shown that the fee analysis facility is proving to be a powerful sales message that is helping users to survive and rebuild their businesses within the toughest market conditions for more than a decade.”
A free 24 hour trial of HBSLite, including the fee analysis facility, is downloadable from the Home Buyer Systems website: www.homebuyersytems.com
