Half of the 467 advisers quizzed believe mortgage lending will recover to pre Covid-19 levels within six months, and 77 per cent said this would happen within nine months.

Equity release brokers were more sceptical with 28 per cent predicting that lending levels would take more than 12 months to recover.

And appointed representatives (ARs) proved to be significantly more optimistic than directly authorised (DA) colleagues, with 59 per cent predicting recovery within six months, compared to just 37 per cent of DA advisers.

The research was conducted as part of the bi-annual Mortgage Lender Benchmark, which asked brokers about lenders’ criteria, speed, eligibility, communication and relationship managers, along with the technology services available.

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