Comment from John Phillips, national operations director, Just Mortgages and Spicerhaart on the latest housing transaction figures from HMRC

21 October 2020

“It is a fantastic time to be a mortgage broker. What we’re seeing at Just Mortgages is reflecting the national figures. In fact, we saw record numbers of applications and exchanges in September. Numbers are higher than any of us expected to see and volume is consistently high across the country, surprisingly the South East and London are slightly quieter.

“The one downside has been the lack of lenders offering high LTV mortgages. There are still thousands of clients with 10% deposits who are safe investments and they are currently being blocked from owning a home. The market needs a steady supply of these products to support current applicants. Brokers are not concerned about service level agreements being stretched, delivering for the client is more important, timing is not the issue. If lenders can fix that, we expect the demand to continue for the rest of 2020.”