“We could get to £145bn next year from around £135bn this year, which is around a 6-7% increase. I’m pretty optimistic,” said Stockton (pictured).
He countered you are always a hostage to fortune predicting how much remortgage business will complete in Q4 because lenders have to manage their balance sheets to the end of December.
“But it will be near to £135bn and less than last year depensding on how fast remortgages go out,” he said.
However, he said: “What is clear is how fast intermediary lending has trimmed down at the expense of direct lending.
Santander, the biggest intermediary lender in 2010-11 effectively pulled the plug out of the market taking £5-6bn out of that intermediary space, he said.
“Lloyds has also been a little bit smaller, Nationwide has been a saviour this year by going up – Barclays has been flattish. So total lending is a litrtle down from last year, with intermediaries quite a bit down,” he said.
“Nationwide would be my lender of the year and for consistency, I’d give it to the Halifax.”
See Mortgage Solutions TV for the full interview, the first in our series of big interviews. Coming shortly, Nationwide’s Tracey Pearce and shadow housing minister, The Rt. Hon. Jack Dromey.
