Some 85% of intermediaries are spending longer on a typical mortgage transaction from application to completion than just three years ago.
Lenders now ask brokers to provide more detailed information on clients, including affordability assessments and rate stress tests.
Brokers need to provide lenders with documentation to prove that potential borrowers can meet future repayments before the lender even considers them for a product.
Jeremy Duncombe, director of Legal of General Mortgage Club, said: “Since the financial crisis, lending criteria has become much more stringent. Brokers now have to match a borrower to a lender based on their circumstances and the affordability of the loan.
“This is a good thing as it builds a much stronger relationship between the broker and lender and improves the professionalism of the mortgage market. However, it does mean that brokers are not being rewarded, pro rata, as well as they were a few years ago.”
With the average procuration fee of £550, the typical rate per hour for brokers is now approximately £50, with applications taking nearly 11 hours.
Of the 360 brokers surveyed, 12% said their workload had stayed the same and only 3% said their workload had decreased.
