Sector personnel on the one thing they would revise about the business
The mortgage industry is, by any standards, a great industry to be involved with – generally well paid and personally rewarding, it’s a profession in which people can thrive and make a career for life. No wonder, then, that many do indeed stay in mortgages for a long time. But, like everything in life, nothing is perfect, and there’s always something that can be changed, hopefully for the better.
With that pertinent point in mind, Mortgage Introducer dared to ask some of the industry’s leading personnel which one thing they would change about the industry if they could. Happy as they are in their work, they weren’t shy in their responses…
Saam Lowni (pictured left), founder and managing director of brokerage Merryoaks Finance, believes that brokers should stand up to any bad practices from lenders. “I don't see enough naming and shaming,” said Lowni, “When things don't go right, every single broker is so scared to speak up because of the fear that they're going to get blacklisted by that lender, and that's a shame. I think that there's got be a better way of holding them accountable overall. The bigger ones have improved a lot and it's the smaller, unregulated bridging lenders who are a little bit more cowboy-esque. I'd like a little bit more solidarity between brokers to be able to control the market a little bit more than they do.”
A review of mortgage regulation is on the wish list of Stuart Heavens (pictured second from left), a business development manager at Family Building Society. “Regulators have a very important role to play in the industry,” Heavens suggested. “The problem with them is that they will try and think of a solution for absolutely everything, and then when you combine all their outcomes, you then have bit of over regulation at times. It's all designed to protect the consumer, which is good, but when you combine the effects of their different decisions, that's where there can be problems.”
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How much red tape is there in mortgages?
Ben Perks (pictured second from right), managing director of Orchard Financial Advisers criticised a ‘tick box’ approach in the industry. “It often feels like there's a lot of red tape that you have to jump through in order to help a client, sometimes via lenders, sometimes via the regulator, and a lot of the time it doesn't feel necessary,” Perks said. “Sometimes you do things because the lender or the regulator has got a tick box that they need ticking. You think, ‘well, actually this is totally ridiculous. I would like more appropriate measures in place from lenders and the regulator really, so a streamlined process and cutting out any unnecessary red tape. That would probably be my biggest wish within the mortgage industry - removal of red tape.”
What one thing, then, would broker Katie Brown (pictured right), from The Mortgage Mum, change about the industry? “I think it would be to make protection talked about more and sold more. Yes, we talk about mortgages and a lot of people do know what a mortgage adviser is now, but a lot of people don't understand protection enough. They're aware of life cover, but they're not aware of the other insurances like income protection. It's a really, really good insurance, but it's not talked about enough.”
Consistency across the board is what’s sought by Graham Lock, mortgage and protection adviser, from Lock and Key Mortgages. “There's no unified process, so every lender has their different quirks. There's such a disparity in between how the companies actually work and process a case. It would be great if there was a set process that mortgage lenders followed.”
For specialist mortgage adviser Amar Dhanota, from London-FS, there’s a need for greater transparency around pricing. “From a personal perspective, it’s a great industry,” said Dhanota. “I love it, I find it exciting and I actually find it's really, really interesting. It does need to be looked at in terms of the way lenders price mortgages, interest rates, all of these things. I do feel there needs to be a bit of work to try to get the mortgage industry to a place, where it's more transparent.”
Meanwhile, the legal process in the mortgage industry is too outdated and takes too long, according to specialist mortgage adviser, Sam Hutchins from Blueberry Specialist Lending. “Technology has come so far and we've advanced so quickly in the last 20 years, with all these new things that we have available to us, but the average time to purchase a home is probably longer now than it was 20 years ago. I just I think there needs to be a big overhaul in the legal process of buying a property.”
