- Interest rates will remain low with Brexit uncertainty as will consumer confidence in the housing market. Pent-up demand to buy and sell will be released once doubt goes.
- A growing Later Life market with more lenders offering RIOs which can be advised under standard MCOB rules.
- An oversupply of lenders and money leading to price competition and lenders discovering their real niche in the market. Possibly some mergers.
- Open Banking concept to mature and open up customer bank data to lenders to drive quicker underwriting decisions. Coupled with easier access to credit search databases, customer lifestyle databases, rental payment databases and other big data, lenders will be able to make almost instant lending decisions on applicants.
- Conveyancing to become more digitised with less reliance on wet signatures to speed up this lagging step in the mortgage process.
- More lenders moving to customer-led Online Mortgages to compete head-on with the smaller players already in the space. Millennial first-time buyers will steer a course to these offerings by-passing Non-people advised mortgages to reach 10% from a base of 5%.
- Estate agents and online agents will increasingly use VR systems to enable property viewings without having to leave your home. This will give online agents a competitive advantage who will use virtual agents to show people around homes using VR devices. Apple will launch their VR headset, and coupled with an iPhone, will revolutionise this experience.
- Brokers will embrace technology to complement their service particularly tech that speeds up the process of submitting paperwork to avoid the plague of “re-keying” information. Sophisticated product search apps will allow brokers to maintain their market share of the complex mortgage space.
- Existing customers will receive lender’s attention even more with super deals following the super-complaint to the ombudsman relating to existing customers getting raw deals.
- Customers will demand, and brokers will acquiesce on the use of digital communication ridding the ubiquitous face to face meeting that many brokers still require. Believe me; most customers don’t want face to face.
