Pero claims solid share of mortgages

Listed mortgage broking business Mike Pero says it has a 9 per cent share of the $13.9 billion residential mortgage sector.

On Monday, it released a brokers' presentation which showed that in the past year its average loan size rose from $185,000 to $195,000.

Key drivers behind its business, controlled by Christchurch businessman George Gould's Gould Holdings, were its number of mortgage brokers, number of loans per broker, size of its average loan, commission rate and operating costs.

The business has 51 mobile managers and 42 franchises nationally.

On average, it writes 550 new loans each month. Mike Pero calculated that its brokers were roughly seven times more productive than brokers in other businesses.

The business gets about 2000 calls a month on its 0800 phone network, which are referred to franchises.

Until last year, it only operated sole franchise agreements, but has changed this to allow the appointment of loan writers - brokers working for franchise owners.

Last week, Mike Pero released its annual result which showed an after-tax profit of $1.61 million on revenue of $13.2 million in the June year, 4 per cent ahead of its prospectus forecast of $1.55 million.

Chief executive Jeff Staniland said this was not "wildly ahead of the forecast, but it is ahead".

He said house values and the size of mortgages had not fallen significantly in the year, despite a slowing in the number of property sales from the hectic pace of late 2003 and last year.