Mortgage and protection advisers feel significantly better about the mortgage market than they did three months ago, research from network First Complete suggests.
According to the firm’s most recent quarterly adviser sentiment survey, 61 per cent of First Complete mortgage and protection advisers feel more positive about the mortgage market than they did three months ago, compared to only 29 per cent who felt that way three months ago.
Similarly, two thirds of respondents expect to write more business in the next three months than they are currently, compared to only 46 per cent who said the same in the previous quarter.
However, clients did not reflect this upbeat outlook. Only just over one in three feel more positive and almost two thirds feel “about the same”. This is still a marked improvement on six months ago, when only 16 per cent of clients said they felt more positive.
When asked about the effects of the Help to Buy programme, almost half of advisers said it will help, while 38 per cent said it would not.
One adviser said: “Something should have been done for older properties not new properties. It is only within the last three years that lenders wanted at least 25 to 30 per cent deposit on new builds, so why when they think that they decrease in value immediately does the government think it’s a good idea?”
Toni Smith, sales operations director at First Complete, said: “As the mortgage market has picked up over the last couple of months, there has been an interesting shift in the type of business that our ARs expect to write that we are already seeing evidence of, as mortgage business in some cases starts to take priority over protection business.
“What we expect to see in the next month or two is an equivalent rise in protection cases which corresponds with the rise in mortgage business.”
