Trust, it seems, is something earned and if bestowed upon you, it is not to be taken for granted. It’s very much in the news. Can we trust what we see and read or is it fake news?
Trust is important in every walk of life. The mortgage market, courtesy of the Bank of England’s desire to curb inflation is moving at lightning speed.
The average lifespan of a mortgage product according to Moneyfacts recently is 21 days. Launching, changing and withdrawing products are making new demands of borrowers, their brokers, and lenders alike.
Borrowers encounter affordability issues, brokers try to lock in the best pricing as early as possible and lenders like ourselves are seeing the cost of our retail funding base increase.
There is a balance we need to strike to ensure we do the right thing by our brokers, borrowers and savers.
At the beginning of the year, among many of the conversations we had with our intermediary partners, there was a regular focus on speed of service.
With little enough good housing stock in the market, quick turnarounds were crucial to counter any concerns about possible gazumping.
Quick turnarounds were important to protect fragile chains and complex transactions. Now, while the property stock of desirable homes may remain sparse, the rapid succession of increases in the Bank of England Base Rate has focussed brokers’ minds on locking in rates and pricing.
The time we now have to get our products to market and withdraw them has become squeezed, but we recognise that it is very important that we give our brokers as much notice as is humanly possible. Communication is imperative in this process. Last year, we set up an entire new team to handle the process of getting products to market. The challenges have not completely gone away but we are much better equipped to address them than we ever were before.
Yet, despite the pressures on household incomes, house price increases show little sign of abating, meaning that borrowers’ affordability will continue to be an issue over the coming months.
All of these things can be overcome and we are listening to brokers to find ways of delivering propositions that resonate with the market and address those issues.
Brokers can and should trust lenders to deliver responsible products that deliver what their clients need. We certainly will do everything we can to make the bumpy road ahead as easy going as possible for our brokers and their clients.
Trust among the various parties involved in getting mortgages to borrowers is therefore as important now as it has ever been in navigating these choppy waters. It is a key part of delivering excellent service. Being good to your word matters.
Communicating clearly and regularly and walking that talk is the very essence of trust in business.
Franco Di Pietro is head of intermediary mortgages at Newcastle Building Society
