The end of the year promises to be an active one for the remortgage market. The exact number of mortgages reaching expiry in the next month or two varies depending on who you speak to, but what’s undoubtedly true is that there are an awful lot of borrowers speaking to their brokers about their remortgage options.
Lenders, understandably, are well aware of the situation too. It’s not a coincidence that over the last few weeks we’ve seen a succession of lenders launch eye-catching rates in a bid to secure a decent slice of the remortgage pie.
That’s obviously excellent news for brokers and their clients, who have no shortage of attractive products to choose from.
However, delivering a satisfying remortgage experience to a client is about far more than simply identifying a competitive rate. It’s about the process itself, and as brokers know, unexpected issues with third parties can threaten to throw a spanner in the works.
Offering clients certainty
One of the issues that brokers sometimes encounter when it comes to remortgages are the variable fees that the client may have to pay. It’s all too easy for additional telegraphic transfer or ID check fees to crop up, meaning that the amount the client was told they would have to pay ends up being more significant.
Obviously the client is likely to be less than pleased from a financial perspective, but having to tell them that they need to pay more can also impact their trust in you as their trusted adviser. This is doubly frustrating when the additional fees are nothing to do with you, and all down to the legal team you’re working with.
It’s because of these issues that at eConveyancer we have developed a host of fixed fee products, following discussions with our broker partners. It’s truly all-inclusive, with two of both telegraphic transfer and ID check fees each included, and means that your clients will only ever have to pay more should their case require any additional work.
These fixed fee remortgage products apply to both normal remortgage cases and those on a Help to Buy basis.
It’s good to talk
The development of the fixed fee products is an excellent example of how important it is for all of us who work with brokers to actually engage with them, to pick their brains about the sorts of products and services that their clients will truly value.
A one-size-all approach, based on your own gut feeling for what the market needs, simply isn’t good enough. If we want brokers to partner with us, then we need to have a proper dialogue about what they need from service providers, whether that be conveyancers or another area of the market.
It’s then up to those service providers to really take on board the feedback from brokers and use it to shape how they operate and what they deliver.
What do your clients need?
Those frequent conversations with advisers have informed a lot of what we do at eConveyancer, and not just in terms of what we do on the conveyancing side. We want to help brokers deliver even more value to their clients, through a suite of additional services on offer.
For example, brokers using eConveyancer can help their clients to write digital wills. Brokers are used to having to broach difficult subjects by highlighting the need for protection, and wills are no different. We have partnered with the online will specialists Beyond, enabling clients to write a will within just 15 minutes, just through answering a few questions.
Brokers can also help their clients with homebuyer insurance, to provide an important safety net against losing money should a transaction fall through, while there is also a tie-up with Just Move In, the home setup service where all of the admin – like sorting out an energy company or getting the broadband sorted – is taken care of on the client’s behalf.
These added services help brokers deliver a far more comprehensive service to their clients, which strengthens their relationship and increases the likelihood that the client will be retained for the long term. They can also provide an additional revenue stream for brokers, with little to no extra work required.
The best brokers don’t take their clients for granted; they speak with them on a regular basis to ensure that they know precisely what the clients need. Businesses who want to work with brokers would benefit from adopting a similar approach.
Karen Rodrigues is sales director at eConveyancer
