About Us

Before we had this mission, we were working harder than anyone to grow the business and improve our volumes, without spending enough time on quality of service. This has now completely changed, and has led to some market-first developments we are immensely proud of.

Examples of this can be seen in the creation of the OMA® Engine (one-of-a-kind smart comparison tool to actually make mortgage comparison helpful), our transparent AdvisorScore review process (which now has over 10,000 reviews!), not to mention the assembly of our amazing team of experts, and harnessing new technology to optimise customer service, 24/7.

We have defined our values in such a way that we ensure that everyone working within the business is aligned, and of the right character, to best support the mission.

This means we hire and manage our team, service providers, our partners, and anyone working with the business to these values, holding us all to account for how we conduct ourselves. 

Our core values are… 

• Pioneers (we strive to lead the way, not follow, even when its not expedient to do so)
• Accountable (we do what we say, and own our responsibilities and outcomes) 
• Rigorous (we leave no stone unturned, and avoid cutting corners)
• Caring (we understand the deep impact we can have, and respect it) 
• Candid (we have a freedom of information flowing through honest conversation and brutal truth)

👉🏼 Read more about Channel experts here

At OMA®, we strive to ensure that every enquiry is handled by a genuine expert, not a generalist. It’s a system we’ve built because over the last 10-15 years we’ve seen how much of a difference experience makes to positive outcomes for people.

We often highlight how huge the gap is between a general broker and a true specialist – just like you wouldn’t ask your GP to perform heart surgery, you need someone who’s handled cases like yours hundreds, even thousands of times.

We didn’t land on this approach by accident. We built it on purpose — because we saw firsthand how damaging vague or mismatched advice can be.

In the beginning, Pete, our founder, personally trained every advisor, setting a standard few could match. Over time, growth pulled us in too many directions and we became a network of good people, but the focus blurred.

We were not necessarily doing more than anyone else to ensure borrowers got to the absolute best advisor for them – which we firmly believe is the way to achieve the best possible outcomes.

So we chose to reset:

• Return to our roots
• Build our own brokerage
• Take full control, and stay true to what mattered most: the right advice, from the right person, for everyone.

People deserve more than just “good enough.” Channel Experts is how we deliver it.

They shouldn’t have to! But they do.

The market is massive – over 100 lenders with thousands of different criteria points, knowing it all at any moment is impossible. And most mortgage advisors are really nice – Whatever customer comes through the door they will aim to help with good intention. But, too often this is someone out of their depth “having a go”.

Its a bit like going to the gym – don’t train your legs and they’ll not get stronger. Well brokers are out there training everyday, but what they are strong with depends on the customers coming to them, which for a lot of firms is largely out of their control.

So if your broker helps lots of standard first time buyers but you are an expat, or someone with bad credit, or who has complex income, they’ll often not know where to start.

Having a narrow field of focus is the best (and we’d say often the only) way to offer genuine expertise, where you can know exactly which lenders will consider your borrower types before they even come in the door.

We would not be serving our mission well if we “had a go” at mortgage types we know little about.

We know our team of in-house expert mortgage advisors are great at what they do, and we also work with partner firms who continue on our channel-expert led approach in times we are busy and ensure service doesn’t suffer, or when there’s a mortgage type someone else is better at! 

A great example of this is international mortgages, where we have worked with Simon Conn for over a decade – because he’s the best!

OMA specialist-approved mortgage brokers have made it through our rigorous vetting process. This includes a thorough company assessment, where we assess processes and procedures, and verify they have the right permissions and access to the market (we only work with those who are GDPR-compliant and data secure and have  comprehensive access to lenders).

And we have a process for ongoing performance management, where firms are monitored and required to meet SLAs and minimum Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in terms of core metrics that drive success for our customers. This includes contact rates, lender agreement successes, and customer feedback through our internal AdvisorScore process – each advisor is scored based on a 5-star rating that comes directly from our customers.

We are so confident in our service and our ability to deliver on our promise, we guarantee it – in 3 ways!

Read more about the OMA® Service Guarantee.

But the story actually begins before that, in 2010, when Pete and Dave became friends and spent countless hours discussing how to create a great online business, combining Pete’s love of mortgages and Dave’s self-taught marketing expertise.

Pete was working for a bank as a mortgage advisor but felt desperate to help more people who they had to turn away due to credit score or some other criteria issue – he knew there were lenders out there, just not his!

At the time, there was almost no help online for customers with complex situations so Pete and Dave decided to get to work.

Pete left the bank and became full time content creator and editor, turning the knowledge and passion he had for finance into a series of great articles, bespoke for niche-led customers who most needed help.

Dave did his thing to get visibility online, building the site and creating our profile, and it was from this platform OMA became what is today – one of the biggest and most helpful mortgage sites in the UK.

Our site quickly emerged as a beacon of hope during a challenging time for the mortgage industry, and  we have now helped over 600,000 customers to achieve their property goals, with excellent reviews on Feefo, Trustpilot, and Google.

Sliding doors

Pete and Dave are often heard around the office, with clients, partners and in meetings across the business, talking about this – sliding doors a Gwyneth Paltrow film from 1998, about the two parallel universes after a “what if” moment.

Like this, we think mortgage advice, particularly for those in difficult situations, is a pivotal moment for many people.

The mortgage is the one major thing between where they are today, and the thing they want. Get the mortgage right and all is well, get it wrong and the repercussions can be catastrophic. It really is a fork in the road / sliding doors moment

It can be as simple as remortgaging to save money, and the extra cash means the family can go on holiday this year. But get that wrong and there is no holiday, and maybe fewer nights out or trips away, or ice creams in the sun even – financial health and disposable income can seriously impact family life and mental health.

It can be as serious as someone trapped in a toxic relationship, unable to part ways because they can’t make the next move work – a very real issue we see time and time again where people are just unable to physically and mentally move on.

It can be as fundamental as moving for a new school catchment, where parents are unable to get the kids into the new area and the school they prefer and this can have a lifetime of ramifications on who their friends are, what they get into, how well they are educated and the lives they go on to lead.

It can be as heartbreaking as being unable to move closer to care for elderly relatives, who are then more reliant on carers and spend less time with the grandkids while they can enjoy it.

It can also mean losing out on the dream home, not being able to renovate, not having that extension or borrowing more to fund fun projects, or pay for university fees… we could go on. There are literally millions of stories and every one of them is different.

So do everything you can to make sure you get it right!

And that is why we’re here. We have seen over the last decade and more, over the last 600,000 customers who have come to us, just how many of them were misadvised, usually by a bank with limited options, or a broker with limited experience. And the impact to their lives has been immense.

Thankfully, we see what it means to people when it goes well and just how emotionally impactful it can be.

👉🏼 You can Meet the team here

Pete Mugleston, Managing Director

Pete, an industry-renowned mortgage guru, began his career as a broker during the credit crunch before co-founding Online Mortgage Advisor. At a time when many needed help and few banks were lending, Pete made a name for himself by going the extra mile to find mortgages for people other brokers considered lost causes.

The experience he gained, coupled with his passion for helping people achieve their goals, led him to launch this company with a clear vision: to help as many customers as possible find the right mortgage broker, regardless of their needs or background.

Dave Bird, Marketing Director

Dave’s principles-based approach to marketing has helped Online Mortgage Advisor and other businesses achieve their goals: being well-positioned to attract customers while delivering the best possible experience and results.

When Dave met Pete, they discovered that their talents, though at opposite ends of the spectrum, complemented each other beautifully. The rest, as they say, is history.