We really are independent mortgage brokers

First of all - a belated Happy New Year to all readers, friends and clients.

Just been doing a review of the mortgage end of the business for 2006.

We have always been keen to illustrate the advantage of going to a mortgage broker is that you'll get a choice of lenders, at no extra cost to yourself. To prove the point, I'm happy to publish that last year we actually placed business with seven different lenders and no one lender got more than 27% of our overall business.

I would be wary of anyone calling themselves a mortgage broker who actually only places business with one or two lenders or who places a majority of all their business with one lender. You'd have to question if they were really independent, unless there was an unusual commercial reason for this.