The Big Interview: 'Any change in rates – up or down – is always positive for us'

With the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) due to meet this week, much of the mortgage industry is watching for signals. For Jon Stones (pictured top), managing director at Mortgage 1st, the focus is rather more grounded. His firm is up approximately 25 per cent year-on-year so far in 2026, productivity per adviser is rising, and his outlook is, characteristically, optimistic.

"I've been doing it long enough now not to get too caught up in it all," Stones told Mortgage Introducer. "I tend to just look at it all glass half full and control what you can control and carry on doing what we're doing."

That philosophy has been tested by an uneven few months. A surge in demand at the end of March – driven partly by rate rise concerns and geopolitical instability – left April looking bleak by comparison.

"Everybody had a record March, so everyone was like, wow, this is amazing," Stones said. "And then April was pretty rubbish, to be perfectly honest. In terms of demand from customers, that dropped off the cliff a little bit."

But he is clear the picture was not as bad as the raw numbers suggested. "If you actually averaged out March and April, they were both actually pretty good months. I think it was just the rate rise that stole a little bit of business from later on in the year. People who would have maybe done their mortgages in April or May jumped earlier because they were panicking about missing out on deals."

Since then, the market has settled, lenders are cutting rates, and new enquiries are returning to normal.

What does an MPC decision actually mean for brokers?

On the MPC, Stones is measured. He does not expect a cut at this week's meeting but is not losing sleep over it either, and he is clear about what a rate decision actually does for his business.

"A lot of it is factored into lenders' rates anyway," he said. "What it does do is drive customers to pick up the phone. Any change in rates – up or down – is always positive for us because it just makes the phone ring more."

The remortgage wave – opportunity and risk

UK Finance is forecasting approximately 1.8 million mortgages coming to an end in 2026, a figure Stones views as significant but double-edged. Remortgage business is inherently more profitable than acquisition as there is no lead generation cost attached to a returning client. But the wave carries a retention risk the industry cannot afford to ignore.

"Lenders are becoming a lot more proactive and a lot more aggressive in terms of trying to retain those clients themselves," he said. "It means that as a business you've got to really be making sure that you're keeping in contact with those clients and keeping those relationships."

The maths is unforgiving. A five-year deal taken out in 2021 is maturing now, but if a broker had minimal contact with that client over the intervening period, retaining them is a difficult ask. "The chances of you retaining that are slim," Stones said plainly. The flip side, he notes, is the same wave will produce clients actively seeking a new advice firm.

First-time buyers are being more sensible

On the first-time buyer market, Stones pushes back on the idea that uncertainty makes now a bad time to act. "I don't think there's any such thing as a bad time, to be perfectly honest. It all just comes down to your budget and what you can afford to buy."

What he is observing is a shift in borrower behaviour. Borrowers across the board appear to be exercising more caution about how much they take on. "People back in the day used to say, what's the maximum I can borrow? We do find – not just first-time buyers, home movers as well – are probably being a little bit more sensible now. They've maybe got their budget that they're comfortable spending each month and they want to know what they can borrow within that, which is probably a bit more of a sensible approach."

Mortgage 1st has also expanded into specialist lending, including later life lending – a move Stones expects to pay dividends as customer needs grow more complex.

AI will free up advisers, not replace them

Stones is bullish on technology and clear about what it is and is not for. Mortgage 1st is actively investing in artificial intelligence (AI) automation, but the objective is to remove administrative burden from advisers, not substitute for human advice.

"If you don't embrace it, you'll be left behind," he said. "It'll make the mortgage journey faster and more efficient. It certainly won't replace the adviser, because no matter what changes in the process, people still always want advice."

He ties the technology question directly to client retention and relationship-building. "Brokers who stay ahead and embrace technology to remove the administration side free up more time for actual proper advice and relationship building, enhancing the adviser rather than replacing them."

That framing captures the broader philosophy Stones applies to the market as a whole. "We sell something that everybody always wants," he said. "There's always varying different issues in terms of what's going to be the next thing that's going to break the mortgage market, but we just kind of move on and deal with the next one."

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