LSL Property Services has reached a long-term agreement with The Property Franchise Group to offer mortgage and protection advice services to the latter’s franchisees, including those recently incorporated as a result of its combination with Hunters Property. The Property Franchise Group now has over 430 physical office locations, conducts the sale of circa 23,000 properties per annum and manages over 73,000 tenanted properties.
The agreement is for a minimum of a five-year period and means that LSL will be providing digital and face-to-face mortgage and protection advice. Franchisees will be provided with a range of options via LSL‘s award winning PRIMIS Mortgage Network. Franchisees will be offered the opportunity either to take on their own mortgage adviser and become an Appointed Representative of PRIMIS, or to refer their customers to existing PRIMIS Appointed Representatives, including LSL‘s in-house mortgage brokers.
David Stewart, group chief executive officer of LSL, said: “I am delighted we have been selected by The Property Franchise Group plc as the preferred long-term provider of mortgage and protection advice. We have previously set out our ambition to accelerate the growth in our Financial Services Division including PRIMIS Mortgage Network and this agreement underlines the scale of this opportunity. It also provides early validation of our decision in February 2021 to purchase Mortgage Gym, whose technology gives us a clear competitive advantage and helped win the support of The Property Franchise Group plc. I look forward to providing more details when we release our Preliminary Results tomorrow.”
Gareth Samples, group chief executive officer of The Property Franchise Group, said: “We have publicly committed to growing the financial services capability available to our network and LSL has emerged quickly as the best option for our franchisees. I am delighted that we will now be able to help them to generate additional income, in partnership with LSL. Together we will develop a new digital mortgage journey that really meets the needs of our customers and our franchisees. I believe LSL has an unparalleled understanding of how to provide high quality mortgage and protection advice to estate agency customers and I look forward to building a market-leading digital and face-to-face service to the significant benefit of both groups.”
The agreement covers the five-year period to April 2026 during which time LSL‘s Financial Services businesses will be recommended by The Property Franchise Group to its franchisees as the preferred provider of mortgage and protection advice.
LSL will be deploying an innovative service which combines face-to-face advisors with a central team providing video and telephone advice, all supported by Mortgage Gym technology, following LSL‘s purchase of this technology on 11th February 2021. Face-to-face advice will be provided by introduction to local advisers with franchisees also having the option to offer mortgage and protection advice as an Appointed Representative of PRIMIS Mortgage Network.
Following the completion of the agreement, LSL has commenced the process to recruit the additional advisers required to meet the expected volumes arising from referrals from c23,000 house sales completed annually by The Property Franchise Group and its franchisees. It is anticipated that the service will be fully operational by the end of 2021. Thereafter, volumes are expected to continue to grow as the service is embedded and, in time, benefits from repeat business from established clients.
As part of this agreement, LSL and The Property Franchise Group also plan to work together to develop a specialist mortgage advice service designed specifically for landlords. The aim of this collaboration will be to create a market-leading mortgage proposition that can support the needs of both LSL and The Property Franchise Group landlords.
