Highlights from Day 1 at MBE 2011

Highlights from Day 1 at MBE 2011




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As well as having our own stand at the Expo, Bridging & Commercial also hosted the after party at Boujis nightclub, London, with fellow sponsors Tiuta and borro. We also spoke with a number of brokers and lenders and also heard what the industry experts had to say at the seminars on the day. Here are our highlights…

Broker Reaction

Andrew Hosford, Voltaire Financial, told us, “The turnout has been excellent and the Expo has serviced all of my needs.”

Nandishwar Kaushal said, “Today’s been really informative and the Expo is such a great way for making new contacts.”

Damian O’Connor, Roxburgh Financial Management, said, “The Expo is not as big as it used to be, before the mortgage market collapse. However, if it continues it’s going to get even better. There are a lot of new faces and new names and we have deals in the pipeline with some of the lead providers.”

Lender Reaction

Alan Cleary, Managing Director at Precise, said of the experience so far, “We’ve done some amazing deals and already brought in a couple of multimillion pound deals today.”

He also told us that brokers had said that Precise’s stand had a “Great product + free sandwiches + free booze = Busiest stand at the Expo.”

Richard Deacon, Sales & Marketing Director at Masthaven, stated, “It was a great day, great venue and we got to meet a lot of new faces.”

Seminars

In one seminar, five of the UK’s top mortgage lenders predictions on the outlook for gross lending were unanimous and all agreed that in they believe the figure in 2012 is likely to be £130-135 billion and also predict that the figure to be around £140-145 billion in 2013.

David Finlay, Managing Director of mortgages at Barclays, stated, “Reforming credit scoring and re-evaluating LTVs needs to happen going forward.”

Paul Howard, Head of Corporate Accounts at Nationwide, said that he has, “No idea how the €uro situation will pan out, but everyone is budgeting for a flat year in 2012.”

The representatives from Northern Rock, Nationwide, GE Money Home Lending and Platform all predict that interest rates will not increase until mid to late 2013. However, Finlay personally believes that rates will not go up until at least 2014.

On current opportunities, Truswell added, “People assume there are few products available to them – it is the job of the intermediaries to point people in the right directions.”

Lee Gladwell, Director of Business Development at Platform, replied, “We expect to see a significant rise in Buy to Let. If High Street lending becomes more restricted through 2012; a greater proportion of funds will be lent through intermediaries so their share of the market is expected to grow.”

Finlay said that European Buy to Let regulation, “Is coming whether we like it or not. Landlords need protection which undoubtedly will come in the form of regulation. There is already lots of restriction and red tape in place so in practice not much is likely to change.”

However, in the final seminar, Isabele Audigier and Rebekka De Nie, both Legal Directors at BIPAR, spoke about the European mortgage market directive on residential mortgages, the desired impacts and implications for the UK market and intermediaries in particular.

BIPAR are the trade body that represents the interests of intermediaries across Europe. AMI are members and work with BIPAR to represent UK interests in Brussels.

In terms of the EU directive on mortgage credit, BIPAR tries to take the UK view into account as much as possible, but with 27 members in different EU states, it has to reach a compromise.

The directive is intended to level the playing field between lenders and intermediaries and improve standards across the board by establishing minimum competence requirements for lenders and intermediaries. This should result in bad practices being removed from the market across Europe.

However, BIPAR feel that niche products – such as bridging and buy to let – shouldn’t be regulated in the same way as the mainstream, traditional mortgage lenders and intermediaries as they are specialist areas and the MEPs drafting the directive do not have the specialist knowledge. Niche products should really be regulated on a national basis.

By Jason McGee-Abe

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