In the Spotlight with David Eaves, The Mortgage Lender

David Eaves, national account manager for The Mortgage Lender (TML), discusses the company's rebrand and how the mortgage market is faring in the North.

Related topics:  In The Spotlight
Amy Loddington
27th July 2018
david eaves tml

FR: Your current job title is national account manager for the North – tell us a bit about your role and what a typical day looks like.

There’s no such thing as a typical day at The Mortgage Lender, every day is different which is why I enjoy it so much. The purpose of my role is to work with our partners strategically, make sure they have what they need from us to write new business and that we add value to the relationships through things like events and help with their internal marketing.  Today I’ve had a meeting in Leeds with one of our key partners then back over to Manchester to catch up with TFC. I’m also in constant contact with our ever-expanding sales team and the guys at head office who help deliver what we’ve agreed with our brokers. We’ve got an excellent team at TML who work very closely together and I’m proud to be a part of it.

FR:  How is the market performing in the North - what are the key issues affecting intermediaries in the current climate?

Purchase activity and confidence took a knock after Brexit and what started in the South has worked its way to the North. But people need homes and the intermediaries who’ve got their marketing right and a wide choice of lenders to choose from are still doing well. There’s also a lot of opportunity with buy to let, the stamp duty and interest rate changes are still working their way through the system but that’s created a buoyant remortgage market as landlords look to restructure their portfolios. There are also pockets of growth in the residential market, Manchester and Edinburgh are doing well. And if you look at the cities where landlords can receive the highest buy to let yields they are all in the North of England.

FR:  TML recently rebranded – can you tell us a bit about the new look and the reasons behind the change?

It’s about real life lending and doing things differently. Lenders have pigeonholed borrowers into mainstream and specialist but the world has moved on from that pre-credit crunch era where people fit neatly in boxes. There are more people who are self-employed, have multiple income sources and a divorce (or two) behind them which can leave an impact on their finances. Our mortgages cater for those real life situations without putting a label on the borrower. 

We’re also different in what we offer intermediaries at TML. One of our values is ‘united we lend’. It’s all about collaboration to identify pockets of borrowers we can help and putting together the right products to fulfil that need. One of the funniest things to happen since our rebrand was at a broker conference where a competitor was presenting. They were talking through some slides which had their brand on one side of the slide and ours on the other – the presentation consisted of ‘we do that too’ followed by ‘we do that as well’.

FR: What are TML’s main aims in 2018? Do you have any exciting news or plans you can tell us about?

The only thing we won’t be doing is standing still. We’re focusing on leveraging our success with the new buy to let range, ways we can support our partners with exclusives and changes to the residential range to improve our competitive position.

FR:  This month, TML launched its buy-to-let range to the whole of the broker market – how has it been received and what makes your proposition different from other lenders?

It’s been great, if anything better than we expected. With no minimum income, minimum valuation of £50k, a proposition for limited companies and lending in Scotland our offering ticks a lot of boxes for the intermediary market.

FR: If you could see one headline about the mortgage market in 2018, what would it be?

More help for the UK’s borrowers from the Government in terms of enhanced Help to Buy schemes, or indeed investment in the housing stock would be welcome topics - but I expect Brexit to dominate.

 

 

 

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