A mortgage broker has explained her refusal to grow her brokerage firm, instead wanting to concentrate on the needs of her clients.
Lawson Financial director and mortgage adviser, Michelle Lawson, said she does not have the intention to expand the firm, keeping it as just her and her husband Dan.
“Dan does the admin and I do the advice. I don’t really want to grow it. If anything, I’m looking to expand further into the specialist arena,” she said.
Lawson explained this decision by pointing out that she expects straightforward mortgage cases to become increasingly automated as lenders develop their apps and artificial intelligence capabilities.
Therefore, rather than trying to compete by building a bigger operation focused on volume, she sees an opportunity for her firm to move further towards cases where borrowers need more specialist knowledge and human intervention.
That could include people with adverse credit, buy-to-let borrowers, semi-commercial mortgages and bridging finance, alongside customers whose income, employment or personal circumstances make their application less straightforward.
“There’s still a huge place for advice. There’s so many different complexities now that most people do fall into the complex category,” she stated.
This reasoning is why Lawson has no desire to grow her firm as, for her, remaining small allows the firm to concentrate on what she believes clients actually need.
Namely, personal finance, clear explanations and someone who understands the mortgage process well enough to know when the apparently simplest or cheapest answer might not be the right one.
Firm founding
Lawson said her route into mortgages was partly inspired by her own experience as a borrower.
When she and her husband attempted to get their first mortgage, they were exposed to information they struggled to understand.
“We both walked out and we were like, ‘Did you get any of that?’ Actually, no, we didn’t understand it,” she recounted.
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“I guess probably what we get a lot of feedback from now is that we do explain things in plain language. We do keep it simple.
“I want to make sure that people understand what they’re doing because we didn’t.”
To achieve this, rather than relying heavily on acronyms and industry terminology, Lawson tries to explain products and processes in language borrowers can understand, such as writing “loan to value” rather than simply using “LTV” when communicating with clients.
Complications
However, Lawson believes mortgages have “inevitably” become more complicated.
She detailed that borrowers increasingly have multiple income streams, different employment arrangements and more complex financial lives, while lenders have developed products and criteria designed to accommodate them.
“As the world’s grown and people’s situations have changed, it’s become naturally more complicated because people have become more complex,” she said.
“If anything, probably as an industry, we’ve actually contributed to this. By trying to accommodate everybody, we’ve made what was simple more intricate.”
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tom.dunstan@ft.com
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