“Last May we commissioned an extensive YouGov poll which courted the views of 2,113 UK mortgage borrowers about their next mortgage purchase.
“It provided a fantastic amount of data and insight into what they want from mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers and I have published much of this data over the last eleven months.
“One area that I focused on was that only 44% of customers said they would be using a broker for their next mortgage purchase and this was and still is something that bothered me greatly.
“Many people said look at the Council of Mortgage Lender statistics - they show that nearly 60% of all mortgages are originated by brokers.
“Or they said don’t believe that data, look at how many of HSBCs mortgages are originated by brokers.
“But I believe the people making those comments were missing the point. The unfortunate truth is that as gross lending shrinks the market will inevitably go towards banks direct lending operations as they will favour their own distribution over intermediaries.
“I am not having a go at the banks as I would probably do the same if I was in their shoes and because it makes sense.
“Recently, the CML confirmed in its data that intermediary market share is declining.
“Financial Services Authority data also confirms that only 47% is intermediated and our YouGov poll is predicting 44% by the summer.
“Given that backdrop the important question is what are we going to do about it?
“I would recommend that brokers face the fact that high street lenders are withdrawing from the intermediary market either by design or by incompetence.
“Look at the facts, a mass market move away from interest only often focused on the intermediary market, dual pricing is intensifying and proc fees are being cut.
“The next move will probably be withdrawal of proc fees for certain types of products which will evolve into at least one brave lender abolishing proc fees altogether.
“The days of brokers being mainstream junkies are over and they need to focus on products that are aligned to their skills and that are unlikely to be transacted in branch networks or lenders’ call centres.
“Buy-to-let, near prime, bridging and commercial loans are all in growth mode and will not be written by mortgage advisers in branches.
“The broker of the future will increasingly be dealing with specialist lenders like Precise Mortgages who actually want to deal with intermediaries or private banks who specialise in certain types of product.
“Those of you over 40, like myself, will not be unfamiliar with this market as it is exactly the way it was in the early 1990s before Halifax introduced proc fees for remortgage business.
“The time has come for brokers to realise what is heading their way and to make their minds up about which lenders are spinning them yarns and which ones will be paying them proc fees in twelve months time.”
