Criteria Activity Tracker reveals Brokers’ top searches in June

05 July 2018

The monthly Criteria Activity Tracker provided by Knowledge Bank has revealed the most search criteria by brokers during the month of June.  Over 250,000 criteria searches have been made using Knowledge Bank since its launch in September 2017.

As the largest criteria search system, Knowledge Bank is uniquely placed to keep brokers and lenders up to date with criteria movements in the mortgage and loan sectors and June’s tracker also now includes eight individual lending types so that brokers can keep abreast of activity in the specific sectors.

For June 2018 Knowledge Bank reports that there were 60,000 searchable criteria, an increase of 5,000 from May 2018 and for the second month running brokers searched on average 4.5 different criteria categories for each case.  The firm says that this demonstrates how much more complex borrower’s lives are today and how important it is to be able to factor in all of a client’s unique circumstances at the same time.

The Criteria Activity Tracker results below show the top five searches performed by brokers in eight product sectors during June 2018:

The Criteria Activity Tracker is known for highlighting emerging trends as the data is not centred on historic activity but live cases that have yet to be placed. As a result the tracker delves beneath the headlines and provides an insight to the current needs of borrowers.

Nicola Firth, CEO of Knowledge Bank said,

“These results do really show what’s happening ‘on the ground’ in terms of mortgage activity.  The Buy-to-Let category for example shows that despite several years of negative conditions and decreasing tax incentives for private landlords the second most searched criteria by brokers is for First Time Landlords. This shows that there is still an appetite out there for first time landlords looking to invest and that the enquiries are still there, even if they are not being followed through with applications.  This could, perhaps, show that some are being put off by the levy on the stamp duty and other taxation.

“Additionally, within the residential sector the top search was for lenders willing to accept self-employed applicants with just one year’s accounts. Does this indicate a move into the mainstream for what has traditionally been a specialist employment group?
 
“What is beyond doubt is that brokers are finding it increasingly challenging to find lenders who are willing to accept clients with ever more complex personal and financial circumstances. The fact that brokers are on average searching on 4.5 criteria categories for each case shows very clearly how complex individual mortgage cases have become and how much effort is needed to find a lender willing to consider a case with multiple parts.

“This leads onto a key frustration for brokers in that most criteria changes are not publicised if the lender considers the change to be anything other than positive and as a result they are often totally unaware of changes until they submit a case. As a result it’s becoming widely accepted that keeping up to date through lender websites and spreadsheets is simply impractical.”