Spring into Summer with a new client base

The point is that Mother Nature is not necessarily a stickler for insisting that the right weather comes with the right season, and neither can we say in recent times that the housing and mortgage markets conform to their traditional periods of seasonal activity either.

Historically of course Spring has been the ‘go to’ month for housing and mortgage market activity; indeed many a property and estate agency business has been built on the foundations of a ‘Spring bounce’ and the attempts to secure as much business as possible during those months, with perhaps a bleed into June and early July before everyone goes off on their holidays. The Autumn bounce has also been traditionally visible especially from September into November with the market again feeling like it has gone into hibernation during the rest of the Winter.

However, in recent years, those months of sunshine-laden frenzied activity have not been so visible; it’s not to say that they aren’t there but that there has tended to be a more even spread throughout the 12 months. 2015 looks like it is returning to housing and mortgage market days of yore though, especially given the recent figures from the Bank of England that the number of mortgage approvals hit their highest amount in 14 months during April. Month-on-month this was a substantial 10% rise with the number of approvals reaching 68,706.

Coupled with various other data-sets for April from other institutions and lenders, it would appear that the market did experience something of a Spring upturn and the anticipation has to be that May figures will show strengthening activity – particularly post-General Election given the level of certainty this would have provided to homeowners and new borrowers.

I suspect that many in the intermediary community will have cause to be pleased about this upturn, given that the first three months of the year could not ever be described as ‘rip-roaring’. One hopes that advisers were however benefiting from the increased share of the overall mortgage market taken by intermediary distribution and the fact that this should have presented considerable opportunity for cross-sale activity – be it conveyancing, general insurance, protection, wills, you name it.

In essence, with overall activity now picking up and advisers taking more of the market then this should translate through to a new client base, with the chance to look after as many of their financial needs as possible. We have talked before about how simple it is to provide conveyancing advice to many clients who simply have no knowledge on which is the most competitive solicitor available, which firm has the expertise and the resources to match, and which option actively works in the market meaning they have day-in, day-out knowledge of the conveyancing process.

In fact with this situation it is easier to provide the conveyancing advice yourself rather than run the risk that the client may leave your office and opt for a firm which is completely ill-equipped to deal with the transaction within the necessary timescale. The delays that can come with this approach are obvious and will mean the client doesn’t get their finance and/or home quickly enough, and neither do you get paid. Why leave this to chance? Instead, use the services of a Broker Conveyancing, provide peace of mind to your client and yourself, and pick up the extra income that can be earned from such an approach.

When we explain this to advisers who do not currently provide advice in this area, I am constantly surprised by the reaction. It’s as if a light switch has gone on – if they were to dwell on the potential missed income over any period of time they would probably need to go and lie down in a darkened room, given the amounts involved. However, the point is not to dwell on the past or to think of ‘what might have been’, instead it’s to use the current increase in activity (and hopefully business) to Spring into Summer and make sure missing opportunities like conveyancing are a thing of the past.