Mortgage
Sell Your Mortgage Trail Book in New Zealand
Whether you are winding down, consolidating, or simply want to convert a trail book into capital, this is how a mortgage book sale runs in New Zealand — and why the next eighteen months are not an ordinary market.
- 50+ active buyers
- Confidential process
- No seller fee
- No obligation
Who buys
Who buys mortgage trail books in New Zealand?
Buyers are usually established adviser businesses and groups already writing volume, looking to add settled clients and refix opportunities rather than start from nothing.
The purchase is rarely about the trail alone. A buyer is acquiring a set of borrowers with known loan balances, known refix dates and an existing relationship, and is pricing what they expect to write off the back of that.
That is why two books producing identical trail revenue can attract materially different offers. Aggregator arrangements, lender spread and how transferable the relationships are all shape which buyers can act at all.
Buyers differ on
- Book size
- Region
- Lender spread
- Average loan balance
- Remaining loan terms
- Aggregator arrangements
- Whether you stay on
What you can sell
You do not have to sell everything.
Most mortgage advisers assume a sale means leaving the industry. In practice, partial sales are at least as common as full exits.
- 01
The whole book
A complete exit, usually with a handover period so borrowers are introduced properly rather than simply reassigned.
- 02
Part of the book
A region, an office, or the borrowers you have not spoken to in years. You keep writing new business as you are.
- 03
Non-trail clients only
Settled clients producing no ongoing trail can still hold value to a buyer who will service and refix them.
- 04
A staged sale
Selling a portion now and the balance later, which suits an adviser reducing workload ahead of a full exit.
Preparation
What a buyer will want to see.
None of this is needed to request an appraisal. It becomes relevant once you decide to explore a sale properly.
- Annual recurring trail revenue, split by lender.
- Total mortgage balances still outstanding.
- The spread of remaining loan terms and upcoming refix dates.
- Historical run-off and how much of it was refinance to another adviser.
- The age and borrowing stage of the client base.
- CRM accuracy: contact details, file notes, consents.
- Any clawback exposure still running.
- Your aggregator or group agreement and what it permits.
Lender concentration is the item most sellers underestimate, and the one buyers are looking at hardest right now.
Value
What is a mortgage trail book worth?
Indicatively, around 1.5×–2.5× annual recurring trail revenue. But trail multiples are the most exposed of any book type to lender policy — and Westpac has just bought out existing trail rather than letting it run off, which removes that revenue from the base a multiple is applied to.
Indicative information only. Actual market value can fall above or below this range depending on client quality, retention, lender spread, outstanding lending, data quality, transaction structure and buyer demand.
The process
How a sale actually runs.
You are not listing your business on a marketplace, and nothing is advertised at any point.
-
01
Request a confidential appraisal
A short form about the shape of the book. Nothing that identifies a client, and nothing that commits you to anything.
-
02
We appraise the book privately
We look at the revenue mix, size and characteristics, and give you an indicative view of value and of likely buyer interest.
-
03
You decide whether to go further
Many advisers stop here and simply use the appraisal to understand where they stand. That is a perfectly good outcome.
-
04
We introduce suitable buyers
If you want to proceed, we approach the buyers most likely to want your book. Your identity is not released without your approval.
Questions
Selling a mortgage book: common questions.
Does the Westpac trail buyout affect what my book is worth?
Yes, and the effect is not uniform.
Westpac moves to upfront-only from 1 June 2026, and existing trail was bought out rather than grandfathered — from what we have seen, at around 2× annual trail. Westpac lending therefore no longer contributes recurring revenue to a multiple-based valuation, so a book that was concentrated with that lender has a smaller base left than one spread across lenders still paying trail.
Lender concentration has always been a valuation factor. It is now the first one a buyer asks about.
Can I sell part of my mortgage book rather than all of it?
Yes. Selling a region, an office or a segment of borrowers while continuing to write new business is common, and is often the most practical way to reduce servicing load without leaving the industry.
Are clients with no trail still worth anything?
Potentially, yes.
Even where there is no existing trail revenue, an active and transferable borrower relationship with a refix ahead of it can have strategic value to a buyer. It should not be assumed to carry the same value as trail-producing clients.
Do I need my aggregator's consent to sell?
Usually your group or aggregator agreement will have something to say about transferring clients, and it is worth reading before you get far into a process. It is one of the first practical questions we work through with a seller.
Is the price based on trail commission or total lending?
Transactions are commonly discussed as a multiple of recurring trail commission, but a buyer will also analyse total mortgage balances and their expected run-off when deciding what multiple they are willing to pay.
What does it cost me to sell through The Client Base?
No brokerage, listing or success fee is charged to sellers. You may still incur your own legal and accounting costs on a transaction, as you would with any sale.
Find out what your mortgage trail book could be worth
A confidential appraisal, with no obligation to sell and no fee to you.
Submitting a request does not put your business on the market.
- 50+ active buyers
- Confidential process
- No seller fee
- No obligation