Method End of Year Review

Firstly, thanks to all the lenders, surveyors and brokers that we work with.

Our collaboration with each other has helped us develop our offering, and the ways in which we can support you and your businesses. We hope to strengthen our relationships with you further in the coming twelve months.

Method’s management would also like to thank the team at Method who have put in exceptional effort this year to provide a service that we’re very proud of. From system development to every individual valuation instruction, so much hard work has gone into developing the business and our service.

Strategic planning underpinning success

In late 2021, our strategic thinking centred around three key areas: Evaluating what’s important to our business and our clients; speaking to all stakeholders; and redefining our brand values.

Along with support from many of you, we identified the principles of innovation, intelligence, transparency, great value, efficiency and collaboration, as underpinning everything we do here at Method.

Much more than ‘corporate buzz words’, we believe we can contextualise each value and most importantly, client feedback proves we live by what we say. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this project.

Business Development

In terms of the ‘marketplace’, during 2022 we have added lots of new lenders, dozens of new brokers and 100s of new Surveyors, helping to provide routes to more clients, instructions and enhanced service through an expanded panel for our stakeholders.

We have seen a significant increase in the level of valuation fees handled, which means we are connecting more businesses, and more work is passing through our system, than ever before.

We have increased the number of lenders that allow brokers to procure valuations directly from the Method system, which has greatly expanded our offering to brokers and is yielding more instructions for the surveyors we work with.

New product development has seen the launch of our Development Monitoring Service, helping development finance providers to manage risk.

It’s been exciting to see many aspects of the business develop this year. And what’s nice about all of this, is that whilst we are attracting new clients, we are also broadening and deepening our relationships with existing clients and providing an important source of business for many of our surveyor contacts.

Relationship management

To help us get closer to our key stakeholders, we have restructured our business to centre around relationship management.

We have appointed a new senior Relationship Manager and team members to enable us to better listen, and more importantly react, to the views of our lender, surveyor and broker contacts

Technology

Operationally, Method is faster than it has ever been before.

We have significantly reduced the time taken for payments to be collected; have added greater self-service capability helping to further streamline the service; and, added enhanced functionality to the user portals giving users more options and flexibility than ever before.

Behind the scenes, a new suite of contracts now makes it easier to engage new stakeholders and speed up the onboarding process.

NACFB Valuation Partner

In May, we were delighted to have been appointed the NACFBs first valuation partner demonstrating our commitment to the secured lending market, and the strength of our direct offering for brokers.

We’re thoroughly enjoying working with our new broker contacts and are delighted to see these new relationships generate additional instruction volumes for the surveyors that we work with.

Bridging & Commercial Best Valuation Partner 2022

We are very proud to have been recognised through a Bridging & Commercial Award as Best Valuation Partner 2022.

We in turn recognise that we couldn’t have done this without the support of our valued panel of Surveyors and the strong relationships with our lender and broker clients.

For each award, those in the industry are asked to vote for who they believe should win and from these votes the shortlists are formed. Two separate judging panels then vote and the winners of each category are decided.

To win this award, having been recognised by our peers in the industry and by two groups of respected industry figures is some achievement and something we are very proud of!

Many thanks also to everyone who nominated us, and to the judges that voted for us, in what was an incredibly strong category plus the team at Bridging and Commercial for a brilliant evening.

Here’s to a successful 2023

We’ve started work on a commercial AVM partnering with Northumbria University which will improve the way in which non-residential property is valued. We’re also further progressing our use of data and analytics to further enhance the service that we provide

Method have never been better placed to support the lending industry. Our clients and their borrowers can see tangible benefits of working with us, including cost and time savings plus enhanced risk management capability.

On behalf of the whole Method team, we wish the very best Christmas wishes to all of our lender, surveyor, broker and professional contacts. We’re thoroughly looking forward to working closely with you again in 2023.