Dale Jannels, sales and marketing director at All Types of Mortgages, said that there would be an explosion of interest in specialist lending because deals that don’t fit into the rigid checklist of the high street lender will fall away and be caught by specialist lenders.
Jannels said: “Specialist sectors like bridging and near prime will see a dramatic increase in activity. With demand so high it’s sure to make other lenders perk up and try and vie for a piece of the action.”
However Jannels added that the overall volume of lending will stay the same despite the makeup of it differing.
David Hollingworth, associate director of communications at London & Country, said the gross lending volumes depended on how the eurozone crisis plays out.
Hollingworth said: “We can already see that rates are drifting upwards as a result of what’s happening in Europe.
“There’s not much to suggest there will be a big increase in mortgage lending this year. The best we can hope for is to continue the gradual improvement we saw last year into this year”.
Hollingworth said lenders looking to enter the market in 2012 such as Virgin Money and Tesco Bank will want to make a big impact but how much of a difference they make remains to be seen.
“While the entry of more lenders is welcome, it’s uncertain whether this will result in an increase in lending or fiercer competition over the same type of business,” he said.
But Andrew Montlake, communications director at Coreco, said he thought it likely that Virgin Money would come in with a big splash and provide lots of positivity.
And he added: “I know lots of brokers are very excited with their entry.
“For the industry as a whole it will probably be much the same however I don’t suspect it will be as bad as last year.”
Montlake said he believed this year would mark the turning point for the mortgage market and economy.
Meanwhile Ying Tan, managing director of The Buy-to-Let Business, said buy-to-let is still looking strong.
He said: “We definitely expect new lenders to hit the market such as Tesco and although it’s a shame they’re unlikely to use intermediaries, more funding and more lending can only be a good thing for the market.”
Tan also added that later in 2012 he expected Santander to come into the buy-to-let market harder and become more competitive.
He said: “2011 saw an increase in lenders’ appetite to go into the buy-to-let sector and this will continue into this year. Buy-to-let will have a good year and will arguably be even being better than last year.
“The market can change from week to week but we see there are a lot of opportunities this year.”
