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Lenders: please vote for us

ended 07. June 2023

A few Newspage brokers have alerted us to the fact that a number of lenders, who have pulled rates quicker than James Coburn a knife in the Magnificent Seven, are now asking you all to vote for them. UK newswire, Newspage, asked brokers for their thoughts.

9 responses from the Newspage community

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Craig Fish
Director at Lodestone Mortgages
The timing is coincidental, and we shouldn't make a knee-jerk reaction just because of the shoddy behaviour over the past couple of weeks when it comes to rate pulls. Let's face it, lenders are just as busy as we are and, in some cases, there are some outstanding performances when it comes to offer turnaround and communication. We can't base all our decisions on a small sample of time. After all, this last year has been somewhat of an anomaly for everyone in the industry. My vote will always go to those who deserve it based on overall performance when taken in context.
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Imran Hussain
Director at Harmony Financial Services
With a little bit of luck, we can make it through the night BO!, as brokers we can not control the notice periods lenders decide to give us, as much as we would love 24 hours to get our ducks in a row, I am sure lenders are not unaware of the impact to their own reputation quick and rash decision making plays when it comes to awards season not even sure it really matters as long as they buy a table. but until the broker trade bodies start actually listening to brokers on the ground, we can collectively collaborate with lenders and come to a mutual understanding of what is needed for everyone's sanity as we keep hearing loads of words about mental health and inclusiveness but actions say otherwise.
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Jonathan Burridge
Founding Adviser at We Are Money
This may be an unpopular view, but, brokers - grow some! Since 2012 we've become flabby from a lack of excursion when it comes to product availability. If we want a vibrant, competitive environment we have to accept that lenders will need to be nimble and they need to react quickly to changes in a volatile environment. The alternative is a lumbering market that is to the detriment of borrowers. So readjust your and your customers' expectations and rather than moaning from the terraces, get match fit.
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Luke Thompson
Director at PAB Wealth Management
Lenders who send emails asking for votes in relation to some award or other are always likely to get short shrift from me. You often tend to find the lenders who are begging for votes are also the lenders who perform the worst when you send them a case and whose BDMs have a habit of disappearing. When I do vote in these kind of awards, I will only ever vote for the BDMs who I believe add value and help me and my business. No amount of emails pestering me for a vote is going to change my outlook on them.
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Paul Neal
Mortgages & Equity Release Advisor at First Choice Financial Services
As brokers it is our responsibility to ensure that our clients get the most suitable deal for their circumstances. When a person is about to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds, a broker telling them at 12pm they have two hours to make a decision on the deal they can be tied into for the next few years or they will end up paying more isn’t fair.
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Adam Smith
Founder at Alfa Mortgages
You can't make it up. Lenders' priorities appear to lie more in garnering votes and accolades rather than providing exceptional service to their borrowers and us brokers. I believed we had evolved beyond such a mindset and one that is far removed from the 80s.
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Steven Morris
Advising Director at Advantage Financial Solutions
I'm on the fence on this one. Us brokers pretending we fully understand lenders' funding models and their need to quickly reprice, or not, is a bit false. Using Coventry building society giving two days' repricing notice may be comparing apples with oranges, when they are a building society and banks are well, banks, and their funding methods are different. Who knows, I've only got CeMap. What really grinds my gears though, are lenders and their BDM's who constantly tow the company line throughout the year, defending entirely unreasonable decisions by their underwriters, shrugging it off and saying 'their hands are tied', but then ask for your vote when awards season comes around. Mediating between lender and broker to correct unreasonable underwriting decisions is literally their job.
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Rhys Schofield
Brand Director at Peak Mortgages and Protection
Aaah, awards season. That time of year when every lender who couldn't organise a drinking event in a brewery launches a very well-organised PR blitz for votes. We brokers just sigh and wonder why they couldn't divert that energy into more effective systems and processes.
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Gary Bush
Financial Adviser at MortgageShop.com
Calls of "please vote for us" are laughable from certain lenders. These also appear to be the lenders who drop the whole UK financial adviser profession in the proverbial when they feel like it, removing their rates without fair, 48 hours, notice. They also seem to be the lenders who take away absolutely all control from their Business Development Managers, including the ability to log in and check a case that's in trouble for us, yet they expect votes on how vanilla their support network is. The delete button has been used with venom of late :-)