Rate volatility, economic uncertainty continue to weigh against the housing market outlook
The UK mortgage market is showing little sign of settling down, and brokers should prepare for continued turbulence for at least the next 12 months.
The backdrop is one of persistent uncertainty. Swap rates have remained stubbornly elevated, property valuations are failing to keep pace with where many clients expected them to be, and a wave of borrowers who fixed at historically low rates in 2020 and 2022 are now facing a very different landscape at remortgage. For brokers, managing client expectations has become as important a skill as finding the right product.
"You're getting emails constantly with rates going up and down," said Emily Franks (pictured top), founder of Emily’s Mortgage Services. "It's really difficult to predict what's going to happen. I expect we'll remain in that space for the next 12 months."
The rate picture
Franks doesn’t anticipate significant movement from the Bank of England in the near term, in contrast to the cuts seen in 2025. "I think they'll hold. I just don't think there's the stability in the market.”
For clients, that means the instinct to chase rates is increasingly futile. Franks said both first-time buyers and experienced purchasers are arriving at the same conclusion – that trying to time the market is near-impossible, and the focus has shifted to what works now rather than what might happen later.
"A lot of clients have come to the point where it's just, let's do what suits us now and in the immediate future, and work out what we're going to do from there. You can't keep up with it because it is so up and down."
A market still correcting
One of the more complex challenges facing brokers at present, Franks said, is the wave of remortgage clients coming off rates fixed during the Covid-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2022.
"Covid was an artificial market. We had stamp duty taken out of the equation, which meant property prices rose because it was a cheap time to buy. Competition was fierce and people bought for more than they would have expected to."
As that artificial uplift unwinds, she said property valuations are not growing in the way many clients anticipated – and those who paid peak prices are now encountering down valuations. "Properties were just overpriced during that period, and now it looks like we're getting a lot of down valuations when actually it's just the market correcting."
Educating clients, not pushing them
Rather than focusing on converting hesitant buyers into active ones, Franks said her role is to ensure clients are genuinely equipped to make a decision, whatever that decision turns out to be.
"I feel like dragging people off the sidelines isn't my job. My job is to help them make an educated decision." Her approach centres on scenario planning – walking clients through what a 1% or 2% rate increase would mean for their monthly payments in two or five years' time, ensuring any commitment is made with eyes open.
Having seen clients' rates double or even triple since 2022, Franks said the experience has made her more direct about worst-case scenarios. "I've lived through it now. It's made me more cautious in having that conversation. This is a very real thing that could happen, because it has happened."
She doesn’t consider it a poor outcome if a client decides not to proceed. "I don't think it's a bad thing if your client takes your advice and says, ‘I'm not ready to buy yet’. I really don't. That's part of our job."
Brokers needed more than ever
Franks said the broader lesson of recent years is the value of good brokering has never been higher, particularly for clients with more complex circumstances.
"How many times in the past five years have brokers woken up to something on the news and suddenly rates are being pulled, or lenders are withdrawing from the market? Every generation of brokers has something they'll remember that caused chaos. My generation has had two or three of those."
In that environment, she said, the responsibility on brokers to provide informed, steady guidance has grown considerably. "We're needed more than ever to support clients through trickier cases and help them navigate this market."
