why you should REALLY support brokers

BrokeRage

homer_j wrote: »

What have I missed?

IFA's now have no value and cavendish have solved the world for all financial matters.... EH? Im afraid to leave my computer again for a few hours as someone might tell me that accountants have no use now that we have self assessment.

Remember.. Tax does not have to be taxing.

sorry folks but the hysteria is setting in now.

That's very apt homer_j. We won't, apparently, need mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, accountants, solicitors, nurses, doctors etc etc, because the information is all on the net and why pay someone to do a job for you when you can do it yourself, especially when it is a simple transaction like a mortgage? Lol...!

I remember that there was a trend about 20 years ago for DIY conveyancing. It was a total disaster and most of the deals fell through as soon as they hit any kind of snag. I am no great supporter of solicitors and most conveyancing work is done by their support staff, but at least there is expert advice on hand.

cells

BrokeRage wrote: »

That's very apt homer_j. We won't, apparently, need mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, accountants, solicitors, nurses, doctors etc etc, because the information is all on the net and why pay someone to do a job for you when you can do it yourself, especially when it is a simple transaction like a mortgage? Lol...!

I remember that there was a trend about 20 years ago for DIY conveyancing. It was a total disaster and most of the deals fell through as soon as they hit any kind of snag. I am no great supporter of solicitors and most conveyancing work is done by their support staff, but at least there is expert advice on hand.

you can pay someone to cut your food on your plate and feeds it to you. or someone to wipe your !!!!, im sure there are people out there that are expert in these tasks compaired to yourself. why dont you pay these people to do this vital job? perhaps becuase the cost to do so is not worth it, not to mention you can do a dam fine job of it too!

cells

BrokeRage wrote: »

It isn't about that....the thread was about the value a broker adds to the process of identifying and obtaining a mortgage and, apart from one idiot who thinks we do a manual job like digging coal or delivering milk, there was some interesting input. Apparently, he can play a violin and dig his own coal, so he can't be all bad.

you know full well what i was saying. The milkman and the coal miner both went away, the reason is they did not add wealth or more accuratly another person/method did a better job. the milkma was replaced by the supermarket and the coal miner was replaced by machine. in both cases these poor people for a time suffered by losing their jobs. but the loss of those jobs was a benifit to this nation. its called progress.

the same applies to any job. if/when there comes a better way to do things, if/when you are no longer required. do not fight the system, you have no chance. re-tool , re-skill, move on

BrokeRage wrote: »

In terms of the coalminer/milkman thing is, the whole point is that we have the technical knowledge and the software to make full use of new technology to assist our clients.

the coal miner and the milkman probably did a good job, but did you buy the milkmans milk at £1 a pint or go to tesco for £0.40 a pint??? did you buy electricity generated by a coal miner with a pick axe at £1 a kwh or did you buy it from machine mined coal at £0.1 a khw??

if you add real value you have nothing to fear

BrokeRage wrote: »

I am sure that the R&D guys involved in developing this kind of thing only have the interests of the public at heart (not), but when the UK has been reduced to consumers, shareholders and van men (ex-milkmen?) delivering Chinese goods (and Polish coal), where will the wealth come from then?

ahhh, perfect question. for perhaps a decade we have been living beyond our means as a nation. it is time to produce wealth again! this will mean a lot of jobs will be lost. not real jobs. the "fake jobs" like those council men who are "enviromental protectionists" and get paid £100k for it. like those people who sit in an office 40h a week and brows the net for 35 of those hours. perhaps like mortgage brokers.



good luck with the future. but imo most mortgage "brokers" will go the way of the milkman.

MortgageMamma

I can't believe anyones still "discussing" this with cells. Its clear he has his own opinion and no amount of reasoned logic will change his mind. He clearly doesnt see the benefits and advantages of using advisers which is fair enough, its his opinion, but its been challenged and dissected to death and its boring now.

Well, we've not had a great deal of imput from the public on this thread. This leads me to a few possible conclusions

1, the thread has got too technical and boring for a consumer to really be bothered to read
2, they have read it all before and don't want to read it again
3, they really don't give a monkeys what happens to the advice profession and don't feel strongly enough about it to worry about obtaining free advice in the future.


Perhaps Cells has a point. Maybe we are just not "needed" anymore and the internet and bank salesforces are going to take over whether we like it or not.

Time will tell.

dunstonh

btw, I still have a milkman and I dont mind paying for his services. We are not all a country that looks for the cheapest ways of doing things. Indeed, with my location getting in the car to get to the supermarket and the time wasted in doing that means the milkman is good value.

even if i lost my job i would not be here starting topics of "please support your local R&D team!" not would i be telling you about "my poor kids, what will they eat?"

Totally agree. No-one is owed a living.

BrokeRage

Actually, it's good to have you respond constructively and, in your own terms, intelligently. There are still Milkmen around, but have to a great degree have been replaced by corporate delivery (Tesco online, Ocado etc). Milkmen did not have a big mark-up at all....it just became generally more simple for people to get all their needs in one place.

Nothing wrong with that by the way, although there would be if Tescos only offered their own brand goods (rather like the banks and building societies are doing). A decent independent broker is like a supermarket in that respect, offering a choice of goods but, importantly, without the mark-up applied if you buy those products through lenders.

I am aware that you feel that you have the knowledge and capabilities to arrange all of this for yourself. Perhaps you do. I have no wish to convince you otherwise, but your views gives me an opportunity to respond, which is good.

You are incorrect about coal-mining. Costs were not reduced mainly through technology (British mines used plenty of that), but simply by buying coal from countries where labour was cheap and less was spent on environmental protection and health & safety (such as Poland, Russia and the Ukraine). It was partly a political move to crush what was seen as one of the most militant unions at that time.

Finally, your comments show a misunderstanding of why we are fighting so hard against dual pricing and why we are so livid about lenders turning on us. They have been battling each other for years for market share (via brokers) and, if funding returns properly to the market, they will do it again.

We are seen as cheap, disposable contractors when the going is good (our commission is usually less than the unit cost of dealing with applications directly) but, at the same time we are seen as a problem because we do apply independent scrutiny, we do spot small print that the public generally would not and stop clients getting ripped of by onerous clauses and, finally, many of have access to a range of protection products that are better value than those that the lender wants to sell.

This isn't about anyone doing a better job...more about us doing too good a job. We commonly act in the interests of "Consumer Revenge" in general and often involve ourselves in assisting clients with complaints about mis-selling and lender abuse. It is about trying to push us down the road of treating customers fairly (and losing our livelihood) or ripping them off by selling broker mortgages at rates that have been inflated by lenders to make them unfair to the public.

If you google "Dual-pricing mortgage" or similar, you may see why there is a debate, and why we want the public to value us, as well as how brokers have been arguing on behalf of consumer protection and against lenders who are avoiding regulatory rules.

I run a firm of brokers and their average working week is about 50 hours and mine is about 65. Believe it or not, that time is used largely for administration and communicating with lenders or solicitors to resolve issues of poor administration on their part and feeding this back to the client and other parties involved (where appropriate). Much of the rest is in appointments involving education of the client and online applications.

I do not agree that a job's value is measured in the wealth it creates, but would argue that we do create wealth in helping the public to obtain the best value in terms of mortgages and protection, thus retaining more of their income for other purposes.

BrokeRage

....and I haven't bemoaned my lot at all on here, simply put a case for using a good broker rather than spending time on research yourself. If you have a broker you can trust, you have fewer worries in life. I have hundreds of existing clients who feel that way about me, so I have fewer concerns than those who are relatively new to this industry.

Dan_Collins_2

Cells you may be worthy to your employer, but to many companies within R&D, Consultants and a few government dept's have been created to print money and bring nothing to our world. This depends on what you are researching, developing, consulting and how good you are.

Like broking, some are awful and bring no value but some are good and bring value. What is happening has nothing to do with giving value to the client. Its all about the banks and lenders wanting to reduce business because of the way they ran business in the first place.

They will come back asking for business as we give them 70% of it. They do not have the ability to take the levels of business they need via direct channels.

I will get a new job in a new industry, no problems but I dont see why I should have to when I have done nothing wrong to lose my business.

You sound like a typical robot on a nice salary doing as your told along with the rest of the sheep!

As for boo hoo, my family will be fine as I work hard, no thanks to the major banks and government of this country, but as Mr D says we are owed nothing.

I take your point about milkman etc, however you will see over the next 6 months when lenders ask the brokers to come back and forget it all. This is a little different to what happened to the local milkman so I think you may have researched this a little poorly??

UK007BullDog

I have left the Finance Industry as well starting tomorrow.

My post is here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=948549 kinda hyjacked Dan's post.

Will change my signature in due time.

allan673

no real need for a broker if youve got any common sense and are prepared to do some homework.
but some people are clueless though, and do need a broker.