What do you want from your mortgage broker?
A lot of firms talk about being award winning, having a decades worth of experience, lots of positive reviews etc. All of those things point towards a good broker. But thats brokers telling you what they are good at. I always say to people that “We work for you” so the way we work has some flexibility in it.
What do we do?
We sat down and had a chat about this and these were the things we assumed you would want.
- A point of contact who you can actually contact. – Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? At Mortgage Success we are a small firm. You will have a dedicated broker from Day 1 until you complete and someone whose brains you can pick along the way and beyond completion. It will be one of 2-3 people. If they are off/sick, we are small enough that any of us can pick up your case. No call centres, you wont have a case handler and a broker and their assistant and whoever else they can throw into the mix.
- Someone who can find you a good deal? Obviously. Thats a given, you would like to think all brokers will do that. With access to over 80 lenders, I think we can box this one off quickly.
- A person who will listen and understand if you have a wobble half way through. Believe it or not, this is quite common. All of a sudden if something takes a little longer than expected or an underwriter has a query. You might just go into full blown panic – pick up the phone, we will have a chat and give you the reassurance you might need. We always say we are like a psychiatrist (sorry if you are a psychiatrist) with the amount of times we speak to people crying down the phone – we know what is at stake, we get it.
- Someone who can answer your questions and give you a heads up? How long will it take, what are the next steps, when will we know…. If you know it will be 2 days, you know to try and put it out of your mind for a day or 2. If nobody gives you an actual timeframe then your probably sat looking at your phone checking for updates every 2 minutes.
Do you know what we realised when we spoke about what we think people want? 90% of it stemmed down to communication.
Communication is key!
- Point of contact – check.
- Whatsapp, text, phone, email, in person – check, check, check, check, check!
You have your broker. You can contact them in the way that best suits you.
Its so basic that I think people forget about it. Its literally the absolute minimum I think people expect but actually so many companies (mortgage brokers or not) get it wrong and make it far more complicated than it needs to be. We make it easy.
If you want a carrier pigeon or a fax, we might struggle. But anything else, we are open to.
What else?
We have the things everyone else tells you we have. But the reality is that we only have the awards and reviews I think because we prioritise communication. Being honest, open and upfront about everything.
Reviews – we have those…
We have over 100 reviews on Google and Trustpilot. We are rated 4.8/5* on google and 4.9/5 on trustpilot.
There are 2 bad reviews on google. One of them is someone we have never spoken to but google will not remove. The other is from someone who was unprepared to answer certain questions, when I told him we would not be able to help, he was not happy. His only interaction with us was a 3 minute phone call.
Awards – we have those…
Financial reporter award in 2023 for Broker of the year as nominated by one of our customers and awarded the win by a panel of judges. This is quite a big win and something we are really proud of.
We have also won a “3 Best rated” award for the last 3-4 years. This is where we have been chosen as one of the best 3 Mortgage brokers in Stockport.
Experience – We have that.
I started as a mortgage broker in 2012. Prior to that I worked for Co-op bank, RBS and a Life insurance provider that was eventually bought up by Aviva.
Summary
I think the above covers everything off.
As I mentioned earlier, we work for you. If you want something from your experience, tell us. We will do our best to accommodate it. Obviously we have regulatory processes to follow, but they can be flexible to a degree.