A new dawn beckons

Turn on the television news, open a national newspaper or just queue up to pay in a cheque at your bank during your lunch hour and you will see what state the mortgage industry is in today.

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We are now in an age where big names are part-nationalised, banks are going cap in hand to the government, Gordon Brown chooses to make comments on GMTV about how he thinks high street lenders should operate and the FTSE 100 nose dives.

If you had told someone even a couple of months ago that HBoS could be taken over by Lloyds TSB, Bradford & Bingley would be no more and the government could have a say in the bonuses handed to the heads of our banks, nobody would have believed you.

It is easy to get into doom and gloom but things will not always be as bad as they are now and even though the line on FTSE 100 graphs is far from steady, most lenders and advisers I speak to are starting to imagine the brave new mortgage world we are entering.

This world will unquestionably contain fewer lenders, less deals, top rates for low risk/low loan-to-value borrowers and anyone with a murky credit history or an insubstantial deposit being shunned in the near future.

What everyone seems to be agreed on is there is a need to get more money flowing again but what is difficult to see is how the government's rescue package will make this happen given the mixed messages from those ruling this country.

At the Cicero Forum Financial Services Summit held in Westminster last week, members from all political parties agreed the government couldn't demand lenders lend more responsibly and yet expect them to return to early 2007 lending levels. We cannot have it both ways and trying to is partly what has landed us in this messy market we find ourselves in.

But what do we do while all this is playing itself out around us?

I could not offer advice any better than that given by Darren Pescod, managing director of The Mortgage Broker Ltd. Mr Pescod has kindly shared this thoughts alongside my comments about what the future holds for mortgage advisers.

He said: "Today's mortgage market, as tough as it is, is the market we have to get accustomed to."

Undeniably those who bury their heads in the sand and get misty-eyed about the way things were when a large number of lenders were all vying for your and your clients' attention will go under in this market.

Those who adapt to less choice in the mortgage market, maintain their quality, continue to recognise everything they do should be driven by their client's needs and are capable of diversifying their offering accordingly will thrive.

It is therefore not with great sorrow that next week's Mortgage Adviser will be our last one but with great joy as we are adapting to a rapidly moving market, maintaining our quality, recognising everything we do should be driven by your needs and are diversifying our content by joining our sister newspaper Financial Adviser.

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