Our History

“We” are The Mortgage Warehouse (GB) Ltd, more commonly known as The Mortgage Warehouse.

Some people think of us as a broker, some as an intermediary, but many more as an adviser. To put it simply, we help people choose the best mortgage for their circumstances from the many thousands of mortgage rates available on the market, and then arrange it for them with the mortgage lender concerned.

So what is it that makes us different from all the other brokers out there?

There is much which makes us different, but this can most accurately be summarised by our mission statement, which is “To provide a personal service in an electronic world”. Let us expand on that a little.

Until the mid 1980’s, there was very little choice for those seeking a mortgage and the main providers were local or national building societies, all of whom offered essentially similar products at virtually identical rates of interest. Specialist mortgage schemes were unheard of, as were mortgage brokers, intermediaries or advisers.

Since then, competition between mortgage lenders has increased year on year, and there is now a mortgage product for virtually every situation. This is good news for the consumer, but expanded choice has led to an increasing need for professional guidance in making the right choice.

Initially, professional guidance was provided by financial advisers, either independent, or tied to an insurance company, and whilst this is still the case today, the complexity of the market has led to the emergence of specialist mortgage brokers who deal only with mortgages and associated products. Since October 2004 the market has rationalised, and all those involved in providing or arranging mortgages, whether they are a lender, an IFA, or a specialist mortgage adviser, are regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

This is all great, except that in real terms the choice today still involves either visiting a lender or adviser at their offices, or inviting an adviser to visit you at home, and this is becoming less and less what consumers want.

Nowadays, the way in which we buy things and our perception of the service we require has changed so rapidly that a decade ago might as well be a century ago. In 1998, computers were only just starting to become popular, and the Internet was still seen as a novel experiment. Some forward thinking companies started to see the potential for providing consumers with what they would come to expect, and the late nineties saw the birth of many of the largest price comparison sites.

By the millennium, most mortgage lenders had a web site or two, as did some of the larger brokers. However, these remained little more than complicated adverts, and many advisers shunned the Internet completely, in the belief that the provision of financial or mortgage advice was, and would remain something which needed to be undertaken in a face to face situation.

Meanwhile, consumers were getting increasingly used to buying things online, starting with books, and progressing through airline tickets, finishing up with groceries. Nowadays, many people make more than 50% of their total spending online and virtually every product or service is available somewhere.

Whilst most brokers and advisers maintained that their clients wanted to meet with them to arrange their mortgages, consumers were demonstrating in increasing numbers that this was not the case, and “online” was fast becoming the first choice both for initial research and for an eventual application. Mortgage lenders were not slow in seeing the writing on the wall, and one by one the major lenders bought in online application systems of one form or another. To begin with, many of these were simple forms, but they did at least meet the needs for those who saw what they wanted and wanted to apply for it immediately. Nowadays, some systems are so advanced that they will credit search and score an application, conduct a virtual valuation and issue a formal mortgage offer all without any human input at all.

However, many consumers are not completely confident in their own research, and for many more there is still that nagging question “have I missed something which is better than I have found”. It is here that “whole of market” advisers such as The Mortgage Warehouse come into their own, as they are able to quickly confirm or deny that the best deal has been unearthed. Accessing such advice is easy, you simply type a suitable search request, such as “best remortgage rates” into Google and there you are. Or are you?

Google will return pages and pages of potential sites, all of which will contain accurate relevant data. Some will obviously by from mortgage lenders, and some will obviously be from price comparison sites, neither of which will provide both advice and whole of market coverage. The remainder will appear to be brokers or intermediaries much like The Mortgage Warehouse, but appearances can be deceptive.

With a very few noticeable exceptions, most of the companies appearing in the first pages will have one objective. Whilst it might appear that they offer the advice consumers are seeking they are often doing nothing more than gathering personal details which are then sold on as “leads”. It would be wrong for us to suggest that those buying the leads and making contact were not professional accomplished advisers, because in the vast majority of cases they will be. However, the cost of the leads to the adviser is such that they need to “convert” a high proportion into mortgage sales for them to be cost effective. In essence, what this means is having an advisor visit you at home, which is often not what was required and completely detracts from the reasons for wanting to “do it online” in the first place.

When you call The Mortgage Warehouse, you will be able to speak with us immediately. We will be able to advise you as to the best mortgage schemes there and then on the phone. If you fill in one of our enquiry forms, we ask you whether you want us to reply by phone or email, and whatever you choose we will stick to it. If you are happy with our advice and want to apply, we can arrange for the application to be made in the way you want, either over the phone there and then, or by filling in our electronic application form and emailing it to us. What we can’t do is visit you at home. By working in this way, we offer you all the advantages of independent whole of market advice, with the speed and efficiency offered by the Internet and telephone, but without the disadvantage of time consuming face to face meetings.

So how did we get to decide on the service we would offer?

We would love to say that we saw the future needs of consumers and decided to create a service which satisfied those needs, but it was actually far more mundane. We loved messing around with computers.

The two principle Directors of The Mortgage Warehouse have been involved in financial services for many years, and can count a combined total of twenty nine years between them in providing direct financial and mortgage advice.

In 1999, the Internet provided us with the opportunity to combine our business of providing independent mortgage advice with our interest in computers and technology, and this has allowed us to provide what we believe is a unique service. We welcome all feedback, and actively encourage our clients to tell us what they like about our service and where we can make improvements. Over the last nine years, the thing our clients like most is their ability to feel in control, being able to deal with us on their terms and in a way in which they prefer, without the usual pressures associated with receiving financial advice.