Specialist lending topped £17bn last year and choice in the sector has widened with a number of new entrants, including The Mortgage Lender.
When the Monetary Policy Committee held interest rates in September no one was surprised.
At one end of the wages scale in professional sport you have premiership footballers making millions in a matter of minutes and at the other, athletes reliant on survival through sponsorship.
Every month we host an online poll on The Mortgage Lender website asking the industry to share its thoughts with us. Our latest question asks whether specialist is now considered as the norm? It’s a hot topic, but luckily, it’s one I also have an opinion on.
We regularly canvas opinion from a range of industry contacts at mortgage clubs, networks, specialist distributors and brokers.
There are lenders for whom advertised rates seem nothing more than headline-grabbers to generate column inches and best-buy table appearance.
It would be good to hear the regulator provide the sector with some reassurance around what Brexit will mean for financial services.
When you consider a reduction in rate of just 0.5% can easily save around £700 per year on a £250,000 mortgage, you wonder why anyone would sit on their lender’s SVR.
The FCA continues to talk ahead of publishing its Ageing Population Strategy in the summer, but I hope that is not seen as an endpoint.
There will be 60 million freelancers, contract workers and temps in the US by 2020, that’s more than 40% of the workforce, and there is every reason to think the UK will follow the same trend.
