Phil Rickards is head of BM Solutions
We’ve just passed this year's half way stage and it feels like a time to step back and reflect, although I'm sure we are all thinking the same thing, there simply is no time to reflect as our world seems to be moving at a rapid pace these days.
So, in a brief period of reflection on an early morning train journey into the capital, which also seems to be a regular occurrence these days, it struck me just how much our industry has been through in the first six months of the year.
The most notable event being the implementation of the Mortgage Market Review, which of course after a number of years in the making, now seems to have settled in as well as could be expected.
From a broker’s perspective, with so many changes to policies as a result of MMR, it must have been a very tough challenge to keep pace with the amount of change and so I take my hat off to all of you!
It's not just change for you the broker though, my time reflecting led me into thinking about just how much my own world has changed from what was probably seen by many as the dream job, a job that allowed me to travel, network and even get that golf handicap down a little, all fitted in around the day job of course.
Now, the opposite is completely true as credit policy, risk forums and quality review meetings seem to dominate the diary and a decreasing golf handicap is only something I can dream of.
All that said, the new world is one of greater challenges which makes it all the more rewarding when out and out hard work and effort come to fruition and the right result is achieved.
I'm equally sure that this is true in the world of the mortgage broker who is having to work harder and harder to get the right result for their customer.
The point of my ramblings and the conclusion I came to on that train journey was that for those of us who have lived through what we thought were good times and equally, have survived some pretty tough times, we have all learnt how to deal with incredible amounts of change and change very often at a crazy pace.
We are nevertheless still here to remember what we thought were good times but were in fact just vastly different times.
The first half of 2014 has been and gone and it’s been tough but with continued growth in lending volumes expected, it looks like the pain we sometimes feel will be worthwhile in the end.
In my mind though, one thing is for certain. Change is definitely part of our everyday life and there will be plenty more of it to come in the second half of 2014.
It’s a good job we've put in some solid training over the last few years!
