Survey reveals which clients are hardest for brokers to place

A survey on a popular broker forum has revealed that mortgage applications for self-employed clients and contractors are the most difficult to place.

Based on the results of the poll conducted by broker forum cherryplc.co.uk, 24% of brokers think mortgages for self-employed and contractor clients are the most problematic, closely followed by clients with adverse credit.

Meanwhile, 18% of the broker respondents said they had problems placing applications for clients on a low income.

Another 14% said that clients with payday loans proved the hardest type of case to place.

Other difficult areas highlighted by brokers included non-standard construction, and debt consolidation cases.

Read more: Majority of self-employed say it is harder to get a mortgage.

“We know that the specialist mortgage market is thriving, with competitive solutions for a range of customer circumstances, yet our research shows that brokers can still struggle to place cases for common circumstances like self-employment, contract work and adverse credit,” Donna Hopton, director at cherry, said.

“Often, the right solution for an individual is available from one of the smaller specialist lenders and the cherry forum gives brokers the opportunity to leverage each other’s knowledge and experience to arrive at the best outcome for their client,” Paul Stringer, managing director at Norton Home Loans, said.

“Clients who are self-employed, work as contractors or have adverse credit often lack confidence in their ability to get a mortgage and brokers hold the key to these customers being able to achieve their goals. Any platform that enables brokers to do this by sharing their knowledge and ideas ultimately benefits the customer and so it’s great that brokers have access to do this, free of charge, on the cherryplc.co.uk forum,” Maeve Ward, director of commercial operations at Central Trust, said.