Silly season is upon us again, another mortgage expo has just about come around, and a fine selection of brokers and lenders will be there with their pin striped carrier bags.

Kings will be Cross, Water will lose its Loo, and St Pancake will be overrun with these strange looking invaders... meanwhile the lenders will be huddled around their cooking pots like a coven of cackling witches, grisly voices encouraging the hordes, “bring me my prey.”

London's finest bobbies will be on hand to assist should, lo and behold, any of these smartly attired ladies and gents collapse under the weight of plastic carrier bag handles containing a wealth of company branded tic-tacs, bespoke golf balls, miniature tool sets, mugs, cups, mouse pads and a myriad of note pads coming in orange, yellow, green – and even the odd white one showing its face.

Enough mint imperials to keep your Granny’s gnashers creaking for another year will be bulging out of overstretched pockets – and more pens than a primary school uses in a full year will be stuck out of every orifice on view. But lest we forget, there may be the odd broker-pack in view as well, after all that's why we are there. Isn't it?

On any other day these guys could take a stroll down to their local Poundland and still get change from a fiver, for their measly wares, yet year on year they trudge through the grimy streets of the capital, asking the locals “which tube mate?”

One lender I know looks at it in another way, read his comments and judge for yourself:

“Mortgage expo is coming up, and as we have now become accustomed, is an opportunity for thousands of brokers to turn up, spending tens of thousands in time and expenses, to spend a day being fed bull and baloney by lenders who no longer have the money, the will or the ability to lend.

“They set up their stands, terrified that the industry will consider them buried if they don’t save face. They give you a biro, a peppermint, and roar with enthusiasm over every enquiry you give them, only to find a reason to reject it a week later after telling you that their backers were throwing money at them!

 “We all know who they are, it’s become rather pathetic now and I think most of us would have far more respect for them if they simply let it be known that they are ‘going through a period of consolidation and looked forward to opening their doors again soon’. Far better than making fools of themselves, and more importantly, of the brokers who make commitments on their behalf to clients.

“Some are left with egg on their faces for nothing other than trying to support a lender.

“It also gives the vibrant proactive lenders a harder time having to justify themselves and use rewritten (often off panel) valuations as they try and pick up the pieces.”

Well we all have our own thoughts about these events, these expos, these company seminars with adjoining lender trade fair, thing is what is yours? Do you meet many new lenders? Are there sufficient reasons to take a day, or even two days out of your business? Do you learn new tricks and get new ideas?

Over to you.

Email Bob, [email protected]