With 2025 now well underway, and 2024 having been a particularly turbulent year, even with some obvious events to take place, it’s hard to envisage the next 12 months being as volatile or as turbulent as the last.
Of course, such a statement might well come back to bite me in 12 months’ time, but certainly within the scope of the UK mortgage, property and later life lending markets, I’m finding it hard to see the huge, ‘big ticket’ events which fundamentally altered the advice space being anywhere near what they were in 2024.
In that sense, the year begins with a far greater degree of certainty than a year ago, with what I think is a much more calm environment to navigate, while at the same time – certainly within the later life lending space – we must also recognise we have a much more complex, changeable and complicated market which, good news alert, will require access to advice more than ever before.
At the end of last year, Air hosted an Academy Summit: Budget Special event online, and from a wide variety of sources, we heard about the growth potential for our sector and the growing needs of those either in, or entering, later life, and how this converges with a greater product offering and therefore a bigger advice requirement.
This should be music to the ears of all advisers, but it’s also clear we currently have nowhere near the number of advisers active in the later life advice space to meet demand.
According to the Equity Release Council – and we must be aware that not all later life advisers will be members – there are currently around 1,800 Registered Individuals amongst 750 active firms.
Being ‘active’ isn’t necessarily defined as those who are actively writing business either.
We have many advisers who can, but far from all of them do, provide advice, recommendations and place business with providers.
Why might this be? Some say they simply don’t see any demand, or don’t see any relevant clients who might fit the bill?
To which you might respond: do you work with clients who are over 50?
Because it seems fairly obvious that if you do, then you’re working with clients whose circumstances right now may or will be applicable to later life lending solutions, or certainly will be in the near future.
The other pushback is often around experience, or knowledge, or both, and we must accept our sector is fast-moving. In the last 12 to 18 months there has of course been a lot of product changes and shifts and these do require effort and resource in order to keep on top of.
Plus, time is precious for the vast majority of advisers and the question is how best can they use it, and can they find it to attend education and support events, such as those run by Air.
The answer however might well lie in terms of where the market has come from, and where it is going, because it seems highly likely that advisers and firms will continue to see more and more clients for whom a tailored, later life lending product option is going to be the most appropriate solution; one that will deliver them the best outcome.
And as we know, Consumer Duty is all about the delivery of this.
We know older homeowners and borrowers are currently sitting upon trillions of housing equity, we know more and more people are taking mortgage debt into later life, we know more and more homeowners have poor pension provision, we know there are growing responsibilities, wants and needs on older people including helping younger generations onto the property ladder, we know we have an ageing population.
I could go on but you get the point that this equates to more older clients needing mortgage advice well past any ‘traditional’ retirement age, and they – I would suspect – will want to keep on using the advisers that have served them so well, for so long.
However, for some firms this is going to necessitate a shift, a growing knowledge of later life options and a commitment to delivering the best for the client regardless of what product areas they currently only advise on.
We have an encouraging number in terms of the 20,000-plus mainstream mortgage advisers currently active in the market, and we really need to do much more to encourage them to deliver holistic advice that spans all sectors, particularly later life lending.
The good news for them is there are no shortage of institutions and bodies there to help them make a roaring success of increased client demand and need.
What we do know is if we do have a calmer market in 2025, then this might – and really should – present the opportunity for all advisers and firms to progress their propositions into later life and beyond.
The clients are already there, the need is already there, the products and solutions are already there – make sure you get all you need to take advantage of this and make the most of a huge opportunity in the year ahead.
Paul Glynn is CEO of Air
