Mortgage broker Intra Private Finance is launching a new brokerage next month in association with an Hampshire-based estate agency.
The London broker is launching SWG Mortgages in March with estate agent White & Guard, with a focus on serving clients in the Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset areas.
SWG Mortgages will be whole of market and receive leads exclusively from White & Guard.
Bulent Kandemir, managing director of Intra Private Finance and SWG Mortgages, said: “We have been planning to have a presence in the London-Dorset corridor for some time.
“However, finding the right partnership is not so straightforward. With White & Guard we found a local partner with great pedigree.”
The brokerage will comprise 10 advisers, with six brokers already hired on an employed basis. The four remaining advisers are expected to join over the next three months.
According to Kandemir, the pandemic had somewhat delayed SWG Mortgages’ launch, due to difficulty finding brokers who were prepared to change jobs during the pandemic.
He added there were plans to expand the number of brokers, but that the current focus was to support its initial intake while monitoring the market.
Kandemir said: “With the end of Covid-19 and the UK leaving the EU, we would want to see how the economy reacts and therefore the property markets.”
Brokers will be based in SWG Mortgages’ own office, located next to White & Guard’s Bishops Waltham branch, rather than in the estate agency’s offices.
Ashley Slade, sales director at SWG Mortgages, said: “We are not planning to have brokers based in the branches.
“We feel we can work better being in an environment full of brokers and their support team of administrators and compliance.”
Commenting on the launch, Steve White, partner at White & Guard, said: “We had previously always passed mortgage advice and business to a third-party brokerage, which often generally followed the same more corporate method of basing an adviser in a branch.”
But he felt this led to a lack of control over the service and that client retention was also lost.
He continued: “We understood the need to work alongside only the very best and motivated brokers who appreciated the estate agency business and could work closely with the people that passed it to them.
“For us a W&G client must receive an unrivalled level of customer care throughout the process and with any legal or financial partners we recommend.”
chloe.cheung@ft.com
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