48% of directly authorised (DA) intermediaries surveyed by The Mortgage Alliance (TMA) say the packaging market is showing signs of improvement. They agreed with AToM’s recent claim that the packaging market has turned a corner with lenders beginning to increase their appetite to lend through packagers once more.

15% said that maybe the sector has turned the corner whilst the remaining 37% expressed the view that they didn’t think the statement was correct.

Results from TMA’s January Distribution Indicator also found that 41% of respondents thought that the services offered by packagers are relevant in the current mortgage market when helping to place non-standard deals. 33% were unsure regarding their relevancy in the current market and 26% stated they didn’t believe that packagers were in a position to help them place non-standard deals.

When posing the question of whether DA’s had actually used the services of a packager in the past three to six months, 56% said that they had not whilst 44% revealed that they had utilised such a facility.

Phil Whitehouse, head of TMA, said: “It’s interesting that we have seen quite a bit of press coverage recently regarding specialist distributors and it appears that some of the confidence exhibited in this area of the market is rubbing off on DAs. Not everyone will be comfortable using packagers but what is clear is that there is still very much a place for packagers in the modern mortgage market as intermediaries are continuing to struggle placing the growing number of non-standard borrowers who are failing lenders strict credit scoring. There are still specialist lenders out there with an appetite to lend through specialist distributors who can really help with complex applications and clients with non-standard criteria. And it is up to mortgage clubs such as TMA to continue helping members to ensure their clients have access to all the available deals.””