What is my Trail book worth?

A trail book is every broker's pride and joy. At the same time it is of immense value to your aggregator too. Selling your trail book in a hurry is a sure shot way to guarantee you don't an amount anywhere close to what your trail book is actually worth. The broker-aggregator dualism need to work together to better your outcome.

The ideal sale preparation time ranges from a minimum of 3 months to a maximum of 5 years. The bigger your book the less risk it holds and you will attract more confident brokers who would want to buy your trail book. Take the time to not only grow your book by volume but you study your book and know your clients inside out during the period of growth.

In this day and age data is in abundance and to effectively operationalize it is your most important job as an 'owner' of a mortgage business owner who wants to build an asset. Start by analyzing contineous variables and get into a habit of adding a number to your monotonous activities.

Examples include:

• I spoke to a lead. Okay, how many leads did I get from the start of the month?
• This client is coming off a fixed rate loan. Okay, how many such clients I still have remaining in my portfolio?
• Servicibility is on a decline. Okay, what is my average loan size this financial year compared to the last financial year?
• After 90 days, I finally got paid on a receipted settlement. Okay, how many days is it taking me to close deals and what is causing delays?

You don't have to think up variables if you don't want to. Your aggregator's CRM will have existing fields in there for you to be able to record this. Consistency is the key. Even if you are feeling lazy, keep a tab with you CRM open. Don't be too hard on yourself. When you get too busy you may forget to input these numbers. Slowly get into a habit of doing a data reconciliation at the end of the week and pull reports. The more you see the figures increase the more you will be motivated to keep track.

"Get addicted to these numbers like you do with your Instagram likes or TikTok views and check them constantly!"

Casual evaluation checklist to start with:

• Number of new loans compared to refinanced loans
• Number of fixed, variable and hybrid loans
• Number of Principal and Interest loans compared to Interest only loans
• Number of first home buyers compared to investment property buyers
• Number of clients below the age of 45 and above the age of 45
• Top 10 clients
• Number of resi loans compared to asset finance loans
• Top 3 Lenders
• Top 3 Referral partners

Start with the eight dot points and then build on it. If you don't know where to find this information speak to your aggregator BDM today. They should be able to even provide you with an Information Memorandum that is built thanks to all the metrics you have and haven't been keeping track of.

Not only will it equip to name your price with certainty in the end but will also play a significant role in harnessing your book's true power till you get there.