UK Finance Figures - John Phillips comments
17 September 2019
The latest UK Finance figures reveal first time buyer mortgages were up 5.8 per cent more, homemover mortgages were 1.4 per cent up while remortgages were down – both pound for pound (12.9% down) and with additional borrowing (7.1 per cent down), below John Phillips, national operations director at Just Mortgages and Spicerhaart comments, saying uncertainty is still causing problems so brokers need to diversify.
John Phillips, national operations director at Just Mortgages and Spicerhaart said: “John Phillips, national operations director at Just Mortgages and Spicerhaart said: “Remortgaging (pound for pound) has fallen for the second month running, this time by 12.9%, which follows last month’s drop of 23.9 per cent. Like I said last month, this is more to do with people being on longer-term fix rates than aby thing else, and this will continue for another three years or so until those five-year fixes from 2018 start to mature.
Last month, first-time buyer mortgages and home mover mortgages were down, and remortgaging with additional borrowing saw a rise. This month, that has shifted, and we can see that first-time buyer mortgages are up 5.8 per cent - which is more in keeping with the trend of the last 18 months, and homemover mortgages are also slightly up while remortgaging with additional borrowing are down.
“It is really hard to work out any trends here – the only thing we can be certain of is that uncertainty is still impacting the market. Brexit is still up in the air, there is a possible general election on the cards and people are just feeling really uneasy about making big decisions which is why home movers are still quite subdued. First time buyers are still rising (apart from the blip in June) as people still need to get on to the housing ladder, but I think the message here is still the same – people are reluctant to move or borrow any more than they need to, so brokers need need to diversify and focus more on first time buyers, protection and other products rather than relying on remortgaging and homemover deals.”
