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We are letting our business be led by the market – Marketwatch

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  • 02/03/2022
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We are letting our business be led by the market – Marketwatch
Signs that the mortgage market will be primarily focused on refinancing are already evident and being further influenced by rising interest rates, but with approvals numbers still strong and demand for purchase remaining there will always be other areas of the sector to pay attention to.

So this week, Mortgage Solutions is asking: Are there any areas of business or your business strategy you plan to prioritise this year? Why have you chosen these areas?

David Baker, managing director of Lift Financial 

We are so busy we haven’t got a set strategy as such.  

At the moment, there is so much going on so we’re sort of just fire fighting and not trying to focus on anything in particular, just on what we’ve got.  

It’s never been a better time to be a broker. Business levels are very active, there aren’t many brokers out there, more people need advice because they’re unsure of what they’re doing, rates are increasing and people are nervous about that. 

From that point of view we’re just handling what’s coming through and there’s so much business coming our way, that we’re not even advertising. We’re just being led by the market. 

We do a lot of high value mortgages in the £2m or £3m value area and there’s a lot of activity in that space. Maybe a year ago, it was quite quiet but it’s a lot busier now. 

We’re doing a lot of remortgages too. Usually, people come to us two or three months before their deal ends, but they’re now coming earlier. Some come a year ahead of maturity, which is too early but others are coming six months in advance because they’re nervous about rates. 

First-time buyers haven’t been dampened by second time buyers or heightened house prices either so we’re seeing a lot of activity there too. And that’s an area we want to keep servicing because with that, you can have a client for life. 

Unless there are dramatic changes especially with the Ukrainian and Russian war, all of those things are what we will continue to focus on. 

 

Darryl Dhoffer, mortgage and protection adviser at The Mortgage Expert 

The market was busy last year, then December was a little slower and coming to this year, I was thinking ‘what is ahead of us?’ but it’s been really busy again so far. 

It’s all about interest rates and remortgages. We’ve had a few clients who want to remortgage early but it doesn’t always work out as the best thing for them. 

We’re seeing a lot more debt consolidation cases than we’ve been used to. But I suspected that would happen with Covid, and now with rising prices and costs. 

It has been a significant period, the last 13 or 14 years, of low interest rates and now it’s affecting people’s pockets and further rate rises are pending so this is going to have a real impact on what people do. People have unsecured debt that needs consolidating. 

That’s our primary business anyway so we’re very familiar with this, but we’re noticing there’s more of a clamour for it. 

High street lenders don’t cater to these clients so that’s where the specialist market will fill the hole. 

In the last few years, remortgage levels haven’t been particularly great but looking at what’s coming down the line this year I think we’ll be busier than we’ve ever been. 

There’s still a lack of properties and a lot of people looking for homes, but the appetite for purchase is huge still and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. 

 

Akhil Mair, managing director of Our Mortgage Broker 

Our business strategy as a whole hasn’t changed over the last couple of years, but it is more definitive around our relationship goals with our clients. 

In particular, maintaining longstanding relationships and meeting client goals with properties and investment. 

This will be built on our existing clients and business, because we’re only as good as our last deal. 

In particular, we will focus on buy-to-let landlords who use traditional mortgages and investors who want bridging finance. 

That will be our priority going forward as well as working alongside other property professionals within our team so we can become more of an all-round one stop shop to best serve our clients. 

We’ve recently increased in our number of advisers; we have gone from three to nine people in the last 12 months. That’s because we’ve grown as a company and the number of applications we write has increased too. It’s just because of our branding within the market, we are now pulling clients from all demographics across the country. 

Bridging has a strong position this year too, particularly around commercial and semi-commercial properties. 

There are a lot more investors now who want to diversify because of an uplift in property value and relaxations around permitted development rights which allows them to make changes and add value to an asset. 

There is also a lot more remortgage than purchase activity because of the lack of properties on the open market, but I believe we will see more properties come to market soon. Possibly in Q2.  

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