86% of the respondents to The Mortgage Alliance’s (TMA) December Distribution Indicator said that they expect business volumes to rise this year.

TMA’s December Distribution Indicator focused on directly authorised (DA) brokers’ predictions and expectations moving into 2011 and found that no brokers surveyed expected their business volumes to fall. 86% said that they expected business volumes to rise with 14% expressing the opinion that they would stay the same.

Results from the survey also found that 57% of respondents suggested that they expected mortgage lending figures to stay roughly the same in 2011 when compared to overall figures reported in 2010. 38% expect lending levels to rise over the course of 2011 while only 5% thought that this figure would be lower at the end of 2011 than at the end of 2010.

When predicting the performance of house prices, 48% expected prices to be roughly the same at the end of 2011 as at the close of 2010. In a contrasting result 26% said that they expected house prices to have risen by 0-5% whilst 26% believe that they will fall somewhere between 0 to 5% in 2011.

When asked ‘with diversification being the key to mortgage brokers moving forward, in your opinion which sectors offer the most potential for increasing revenue streams in 2011?’, 65% of DAs pointed to protection as the sector offering the most potential. This question offered respondents the opportunity to choose more than one option. The next popular choice was buy-to-let which polled 28% 20% cited commercial as an area of growth with 15% plumping for equity release and 10% for general insurance. Other areas suggested were regulated pensions and investment advice and specialist packaging.

Phil Whitehouse , head of TMA, said: “It’s always good to start the New Year on a positive note and despite predictions of intermediary numbers falling the results of this survey indicate that DA brokers are looking to 2011 with a good level of optimism. Of course challenges do remain for DAs and it’s imperative that distribution partners such as TMA continue to work hard and add value to intermediary firms. It’s also interesting that so many respondents have highlighted protection as the sector offering the most potential for increasing revenue streams in 2011.