Q: Will the full launch of the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme or MMR have the biggest impact on the mortgage market in 2014?
A: Over the last 12 months, like the economy generally, the housing market has picked up, while the advent of Help to Buy – and an increase in remortgage activity reflecting a renewed consumer confidence – and has seen the market change significantly.
And at Santander for Intermediaries we’ve expanded our intermediary product range plus increased our focus on the buy-to-let market targeting non-professional landlords, with the aim of boosting our share of this growing market. Similarly, we’ve also extended the maximum loan size on selected standard mortgages up to £2.5m.
Changes are unlikely to stop as we begin 2014, Santander will join the second phase of Help to Buy soon and the much anticipated Mortgage Market Review (MMR) coming to the market in April, one of the biggest regulatory changes to happen in the last 10 years.
The second phase of the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme will help improve the flow of credit to good quality consumers, allowing both first time buyers and those looking to move home access to higher loan-to-value products.
These new products will complement our existing broad range of good value mortgage products that support affordable housing and we will provide further details of our new Help to Buy products shortly.
The MMR, which launches in April, will put quality and sustainability at the heart of the mortgage transaction. As part of the changes, Santander will be focussing on the customer experience, making sure that any Santander mortgage is sustainable and right for the customer’s personal needs and circumstances, both now and in the future.
Intermediaries, who can and have adapted to these changing work practices, will play an ever more important role in helping their clients navigate the right options, partnering with the lender to help educate clients to take accountability and structure their expectations within what is affordable.
Over the year while the overall effect of these changes is uncertain, it looks increasingly likely that they will take place against a stronger economic background.
This makes it likely that market activity will move forward again and that house prices will maintain their upward progress. As economic recovery becomes sustained, it is possible that regions outside London will see house prices pick up relative to their performance last year.
With regulation to ensure customers have the flexibility and freedom they need and deserve, and intermediaries to help their clients steer the changing environment, lenders can make good decisions at a customer level and mortgage lending in the UK can continue its contribution to sustained economic growth.
