Thank goodness that’s over!

January 14, 2019 by Jamie @ Affinity Mortgages

I think the general consensus from all of the staff at Affinity is that we cannot eat or drink anything else….

We try and enjoy the whole Christmas period off of work so we can re-charge our batteries before we go again into the new year, and looking back on what we did last year it is not surprising that we needed to – we arranged nearly £300 million pounds worth of new borrowing from our small team in Southend – and on behalf of our clients! 

Lenders tend to work on their distribution through firms who can reach a certain number of cases in a year or the lending value, a good example of this being HSBC, whose panel we were welcomed on to in the 2^nd quarter of last year. As a small firm, and one of only a very limited number of Directly Authorised Independent firms to afforded this, we as you can imagine were extremely proud to have been invited onto this exclusive panel. 

So in December we had much to celebrate, a superb year of incredibly hard work and the success of the various departments that we have including the mortgage team, specialist mortgages, Premier Mortgages (based in Essex and the City of London) and not forgetting our superb protection team.

There were some superb individual working year’s in there with the prize of our team player of the year being picked Up by Jessica Abrahams. Jess has been with us for years, and is a senior member of the administration team – ultimately this is the bit most people don’t see until their mortgage is proceeding – but having worked for many firms, and seeing these administrators in practice, I would choose Jess to run my mortgage every single time!

Whilst we did the most business in a single year in the companies history we also decided to invest in the Trustpilot review scheme – I wanted to know that our customers have a chance for to hear whether we are getting the process right or wrong, and sometimes firms, in my opinion, can lose sight of this.

I think this makes me more proud than anything else looking back at our year because, after all it is great to help people into their homes or investing in a new project or property, or even assisting them in covering their family or business properly with their insurances but at such a stressful time in peoples lives we really want to add value and the difference between us and many, notwithstanding the fact we are truly independent and in most circumstances charge less, but we are a 5-star Trustpilot rated firm!!!!!!

Moving into 2019 we have some very exciting things going on and at this stage I can announce that we have gone into business with local business lady (and basically the best multi-tasker I think I have ever met) Sarah Tucker and we will be launching The Mortgage Mum Ltd fully in the next few months. This website is going to be a fabulous place for people to visit to find out some crucial mortgage information delivered by Sarah  in any chosen topic. It will also allow people to make a full application to us directly saving time before the information that our clients need quickly can be delivered to us in the most efficient manner for a broker to start their work as soon as possible. 

We also have our first charity ball taking place in early February – we are supporting the Butterfly Bereavement Suite at Southend Hospital which some of our eldest clients tragically had to use. The event has already sold out and we have been so fortunate to be supported to so may local and national businesses. I think I also need to mention the couple of chaps in our office whom are taking on The North Downs Ultra Marathon for this incredible cause also – a 50 mile run no less! I have to admit I did a training run with one of them – I managed 10k and felt like a champion – only to then find out this was only 6….. SIX and a bit miles 

Good Luck with that chaps!!!!!!!

So we are very proud of how we as a local firm are helping local people achieve their housing goals, and the incredible hard work of our team in doing so – If you are looking for Wholistic mortgage advice – cheaper than most if any fee at all – and support of a whole team who last years clients rated as 5-Star service – I guess we should be your call!!!!

For more details or to get in touch call contact them on 01702 337003 or email on info@affinity-protect.co.uk