Speaking on a lender panel at Mortgage Business Expo Leeds, Haresnape played down the impact of Brexit, believing the mortgage market will continue as normal whatever happens.
Government buy-to-let interventions are more likely to rock the industry than a Brexit in the next few years, Aldermore managing director Charles Haresnape (pictured) claimed today.
Speaking on a lender panel at Mortgage Business Expo Leeds, Haresnape played down the impact of Brexit, believing the mortgage market will continue as normal whatever happens.
Haresnape said: “The housing market will remain robust. In the event of a Brexit for the economy the effect could be quite material, but not for our sectors. It’s going to be business as usual.
“What’s going to cause the biggest impact in the next two or three years? I don’t think it’s a Brexit. It will be more government intervention or FPC-type obligations given to lenders.
“MMR has been and gone. We’ve got the FPC giving powers on buy-to-let, there’s a consultation paper from the PRA going out to lenders on stress testing buy-to-let.
“Watch this space. There will be a tightening from some lenders on stress tests on buy-to-let because for a few lenders it’s too loose. But the vast bulk of the market is in the right place.”
Another issue raised by Haresnape surrounded Basel III capital requirements.
He said: “Essentially if the costs of funds goes up someone has got to pay for that. That is not a done deal. It is an international thing, not a EU thing.
“The UK will fight quite hard against that. It would be great if Basel III doesn't get introduced.”
However, the other two panellists, Steve Luty, head of business development for North and Scotland at Nationwide Commercial and Paul Darwin, head of intermediary sales at Skipton Building Society, both seemed more concerned about the uncertainty of the referendum.
Darwin said: “If you look at the one country that has come out of the EU, Greenland, it took them three years to unwind from the Europe. For them, they just had one issue and that was fishing.
“Given that we have a dozen issues the problem for me is uncertainty and it’s reckoned things would become uncertain for the next decade. More than likely it would have an impact on sterling and inflation."
Luty added: “Uncertainty has certainly affected the commercial market which has seen a slowdown. That uncertainty could continue and that will be worse for the market.
“For all of us the cost of our money will effectively increase and that increase will continue for a month or two.”
