Brokers react to DLC’s Marlborough Stirling purchase

MorWEB is poised to become a much bigger player in the mortgage game; how do brokers – both DLC and others – feel about the purchase?

MorWEB is poised to become a much bigger player in the mortgage game; how do brokers – both DLC and others – feel about the purchase?

“It’s not going to be anything but a good thing for brokers,” Dustan Woodhouse, a broker with Dominion Lending Centres Canadian Mortgage Experts, told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “That’s a platform that hasn’t seen a lot of action for brokers. There’s no question it’s going to be a major player in the space.”

Dominion Lending Centres announced the pending purchase of Marlborough Stirling early Wednesday.

The reported $5.5 million deal obviously includes MorWEB, the country’s second-largest mortgage processing platform. MorWEB is still a relatively small player – accounting for less than 10% of the market -- compared to its main competitor, D+H’s Expert.

But with the country’s largest network behind it, Marlborough is certainly set to see its share increase.

The announcement was another major one for Dominion Lending Centres in a year that saw it acquire major competitor Mortgage Architects.

Adding those agents to the already impressive numbers under Mortgage Centre’s banner – not to mention DLC’s own agents and brokers – along with this most recent purchase, has some questioning whether DLC is becoming too influential in the industry.

“It’s never a good thing when any one entity has too much concentrated power in any industry. It doesn’t affect me either way; I’m an independent under the Coalition CIMBC as an independent,” John Bargis, vice president of Mortgage Edge, told MBN.

Still, Bargis was quick to give credit where it was due. He did, however, question how lenders will react to the purchase.

“At the risk of sound like sour grapes, I don’t believe this is good for the industry in general, but good for them if they can successfully monetize the system and drive revenue for the investors," he said. “I think that the lenders certainly have to be scratching their heads on this one and wondering what this play has in store for them. Increased technology investment perhaps at a time that the industry is in a state of flux might be tough to swallow.”

For their part, some non-DLC brokers have already voiced their apprehension about sending deals through a company owned by a competitor.

Despite this, there’s no question more deals will filter through MorWEB than ever before.

“Between DLC, MCC, and Mortgage Architects we’re talking 5,000 brokers,” Woodhouse said. “At the end of the day, what does the platform look like? If it’s more user-friendly it’ll get used.”