The Intermediary – August 2025 - Flipbook - Page 77
M E E T T H E B RO K E R
their needs and requirements. Our
clients are individuals, and they get
treated as such. We are slightly
unusual in our peer group as all
three of the founding directors still
provide advice to our clients. This
means we are still very much at the
coalface, keeping us up to date with
lenders.We experience the same
challenges as our brokers do. We all
enjoy the role that we fulfil and don’t
want to step away from interacting
with clients.
As the mortgage world is ever
changing in terms of client need,
products and regulation, it provides
constant challenge and the
requirement for learning. It is difficult
to get bored in an ever-evolving
industry. It will be interesting to see
how the introduction of artificial
intelligence (AI) and Open Banking
will impact the broker sector. As
with all technology, I am expecting
this will cause positive and negative
impacts. As the role of a good broker
goes far beyond picking the cheapest
mortgage rate, I expect that there
will be a requirement for an expert
to help guide clients through the
mortgage and house buying journey.
What are the main
opportunities in the
market for brokers?
We have seen a significant increase
in first-time buyer activity in addition
to a rise in the number of clients
moving. In conjunction with the
increased level of clients needing
to remortgage, we are expecting to
have a strong year in 2025.
We provide advice across all types
of property finance transactions,
but as time has passed, we are
now mostly involved in residential
transactions as the demand for buyto-let advice has decreased.
We have always tended to provide
advice to clients with challenging
or unusual circumstances that
require some advice. It seems like
the number of clients with complex
needs is increasing, and they are
unlikely to transact directly with
banks in the future. While the
improved technology may make it
easier for some clients to acquire
finance from banks without a broker,
it feels like there will still be a large
percentage who will still require,
or want, an expert to advise them
and guide them through their house
buying or remortgage process.
What are the main issues
affecting your sector?
The past few years have been
turbulent, and this has led to a lot
more post-application changes. In
a declining rate environment it is
difficult to stay on top of this, and
not all lenders make it easy to switch
when better rates come available.
We find that lenders still struggle
to accept income that is earned
in any way that they consider to
be non-standard. For example,
the leading global companies,
such as Apple, Meta and Google
often remunerate their staff using
restricted stock units. It seems like
too few lenders have ever tried
to really find a solution for these
clients. This is despite these clients
typically being high earning and in
stable employment. This is just one
of many examples of lenders failing
to move with the times and try and
understand something which is
becoming increasingly common.
The issues with fire safety and
EWS1 forms seems to be another
thing with lenders have really
struggled to come up with a
coherent and consistent approach
for. The criteria and lending decisions
for these properties have been
opaque and erratic. A massive group
of property owners have been
negatively impacted by something
that is totally beyond their control,
and many have been left unable to
sell or refinance.
These are very different examples
of the kind of ‘group think’ that
exists where lenders fail to try and
find solutions to a change in client
needs. Unfortunately, this tends to
leave some clients unable to find
a satisfactory solution, or in some
cases having to pay a premium for
their mortgage.
In what ways could
lenders better support
brokerages, if any?
We are very grateful for the support
that lenders have offered to the
broker market. Lenders could look to
support next-time buyers in the way
that they are supporting first-time
buyers. It seems a little crazy that
first-time buyers are getting sixtimes income whereas some nexttime buyers might struggle to get
over five-times.
It is great to see more innovation
from lenders and new lenders
joining the market. Some of the new
lenders have offered truly unique
propositions and have catered
to parts of the market that were
traditionally underserved. It seems
to be incredibly hard for lenders
to launch and gain traction in the
market, and part of the reason for
this seems to be based around
distribution and access being granted
to provide applications.
We would love lenders and
mortgage networks to try to offer
a more coherent approach to
technology. It feels like the industry
has failed to keep up, and it seems
laughable that many lenders still
ask for wet signed declarations, and
certified proof of ID and address in
2025. The whole industry needs to
get together and devise a way that
consumers can interact with lenders
in a way that is befitting of this era.
The mortgage broking role has
changed significantly since I started
over 20 years ago. It will continue
to change in the future, and it is
imperative that people who want
to continue to be in the industry
change with it and adapt to help our
clients fulfil their plans. Being part of
a good company and having strong
relationships with your network and
lending partners will stand you in
good stead to move with the times
and benefit from whatever impact
tech has over the coming decade.
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August 2025 | The Intermediary
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