In March this year Fareham-based Solent received £110.7 million of new applications with 16 per cent of the business coming from brokers who had never used Solent Mortgage Services before and 37 per cent of the total coming from mortgage networks who had formal agreements which were less than 12 months old.
The branded mortgage arranger has announced that its relationships with networks and other directly authorised brokers heralded a 3 per cent increase in mortgage volumes in March 2005 compared to the same period last year.
Ian Balfour, sales and marketing director for Solent Mortgage Services, said: “These figures clearly illustrate that the strategy we put in place last year to develop new relationships with networks and other directly authorised brokers has paid off.
It was very clear to us that the market would change after ‘Mortgage Day’ and while we are very fortunate to have a core of brokers with whom we have worked over many years, this brings home the importance of securing new markets.”
Kelvin Cooper, managing director at Solent Mortgage Services, added: “Bearing in mind the downbeat news concerning lower year-on-year mortgage lending figures, we are very pleased to be in this position and able to see a growing pipeline of business.”
Matthew Bright, managing director at Optoma, said: “Distribution is everything from a mortgage arranger’s viewpoint. The figures supplied aren’t a shock, they prove that as a professional packager, when following a good business model and building important relationships, the business is out there.”
