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Challenges and opportunities in the mortgage market

Journalist: Natalie Thomas, Freelance

ended 02. August 2023

Hello, 

I am writing a feature for The Intermediary magazine and I would love to hear your thoughts - thank you in advance. 

My questions for mortgage broker firms are; 

  1. What are some of your biggest day-to-day challenges on a professional front? (consumer duty/product withdrawals?) (please state if your business is residential, BTL, bridging)
  2. In terms of your own business and clients, is the cost of living crisis and rising costs having an impact? Are you having to diversify into other product areas? 
  3. Are you using technology to help your business? how? and are you worried about Artificial Intelligence? 

3 responses from the Newspage community

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Stephen PerkinsVerified
Managing Director at Yellow Brick Mortgages
The biggest challenge of late has been rate withdrawals with little-to-no notice coupled with poor lender service standards. This often leads to late evenings to secure rates for clients, and if rates reduce reapplying several times for a client to continually look to save them as much money as possible, so on many applications we are doing the work several times over.

The Buy to Let market is broken, with the high rents required to meet the increased stress-test rates, new purchases need larger deposits and remortgages are for most not viable, leaving only the product transfer option.

Residential is slowing purchases due to fewer buyers being able or willing to buy a new home in the current financial climate.

I am not concerned about AI, some tools help brokers, but I do not feel will replace brokers. I think professional experienced personal financial advice has never been higher valued by the marketplace.
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Darryl DhofferVerified
Founder at The Mortgage Geezer
We have all faced challenges over recent years. Just would be nice to play the financial game on "Normal" mode for a sustained period, instead of "Extreme Difficulty"
No two days are the same, which makes our industry so interesting, but I can safely say, in the last 12 months, my split on advising and counselling is now a ratio of 40% advice and 60% life counselling - So if we call this an area of diversification, then yes, we as a company are diversifying. Always been passionate about helping and showing empathy to all clients so no change there, which no AI system could ever replicate, in my opinion - As brokers we always offer real-time genuine, focused mortgage advice, which has been obtained from real-life experiences and showing compassion, and not uploaded, non-experienced data.
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Jamie AlexanderVerified
Mortgage Director at Alexander Southwell Mortgages
In recent times, the main challenge has been the abrupt and unexpected rate of withdrawals, though this has improved in recent weeks. The market has become slower, and clients are taking more time to commit to purchasing. While we deal in standard residential and Buy to Let (BTL) properties, the BTL market has experienced a significant drop-off, primarily due to the high rents required to meet the increased stress test rates.

To speed up processes, we incorporate AI for some content creation. However, we are not overly concerned about AI's impact since the heavily regulated market still emphasizes the need for human interaction. Clients now seek to engage with a person more than ever.