Broker Conveyancing has reported that, compared to the first quarter of 2014, its total number of purchase and remortgage instructions increased by 30% with a 32% increase in purchase instructions, and remortgage business improving by 25%.
The split between purchase and remortgage business has shown a slight widening with remortgage now accounting for 33% of business in Q2 compared with 35% in Q1.
The figures echo the most recent lending figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) for May which saw house purchase lending rising by 9% by both volume and value compared to April, while remortgage lending was 18% down by volume and value compared to the previous month.
Broker Conveyancing says that while its business levels are clearly growing, the improved total instruction levels are down to an increase in the number of new brokers using the distributor each month. The business has experienced a 53% quarter-on-quarter increase in registrations with 10 new brokers using the system for the first time every week.
Harpal Singh (pictured), managing director of Broker Conveyancing, said: “It is pleasing to see that, even with the housing and mortgage markets cooling down in recent months, our total instruction levels continue to improve. Purchase business continues to dominate and looking towards the rest of the year one would expect this trend to continue.
“We will be honest and say we anticipated remortgage activity would be more buoyant but, as can be seen from the most recent CML statistics, it has tailed off in the past few months. This may be down to a combination of reasons with borrowers perhaps waiting to see what rates might do, plus some repricing and a slight pullback from this business area by a number of lenders. It is clear that our 25% growth in remortgage transactions is due to our growing distribution rather than the market.
“Certainly our ambition is to continue to grow the number of brokers actively recommending conveyancing services to their clients. This is very important when mortgage activity looks like it is plateauing and we fully expect more and more advisers to therefore look at the opportunities within the conveyancing sector and, if they are not already providing recommendations to clients, to begin to do so. There are also a large number of advisers moving to us because of the more competitive pricing we offer, the solicitor firms we have on panel and the simple fact that they can earn more income with us than with other distributors.”
