2024 has been a bit like a football match. The only way I can describe it is a year of 2 halves. 2023 was an awful year for us, probably our worst year in over a decade! This year started off a little better but it was still on the slow side.
The second half of the year however was much better, there was a lull in the run up to the budget but once that had been announced, surprisingly there was a big uptick in business and we had a couple of busy busy months.
The big news for us this year is that we brought Matt onboard in May time as a trainee Mortgage broker. He had already passed his exams and we had been speaking for a few months on an off. I was not really looking to take on a trainee after a few trainees in the past letting us down. But he was full of enthusiasm and came across well so I went against my normal rule and we took him on. I can honestly say it was a good decision. The feedback from customers is all positive which is great. We were hoping to get him signed off as fully competent before the end of the year but we might just need part of January to get him there, we will see how the last 2 weeks of the year fo.
Business volumes
Business volumes up until arounf August were on the slow side, but since August its been non stop. After the budget we hit another level and November I think was our busiest November ever, but also not far off our busiest month ever!
Still a lot of product transfers going on, but purchases has definitely seen a big increase on last year. We are not quite back to normal business volumes but we are getting closer. Fingers crossed next year will kick off where this year finished.
Looking at the numbers, we have hit a little over £8m in mortgages this year. To put that into context, in 2023 we did not even hit £7m and in 2022 we wrote over £10m, so we are around 15% up on last year but around 20% down on the year before.
I think we need to be aiming for the £10m mark next year as a minimum really.
Interest rates
This has been an interesting one, I was talking to some brokers last month and it made me realise something. The conversations about how high interest rates are seem to have slowed significantly. It is only really people looking to remortgage who mention it now. That makes me think people have got to the point of seeing mortgage interest rates of around 4-5%.
I think that was needed as it is unlikely we will see rates beginning with a 1 or 2 again any time soon and even 3% could be a stretch.
We started the year doing a 5 year fixed 90% mortgage at 4.52% with one of 2 lenders who have been at the top of the rate charts all year.
In August we started doing a monthly review to keep an eye on how interest rates are going. We looked at 4 mortgage types:
- 90% 5 year fix,
- 90% 2 year fix,
- 85% 5 year fix with adverse,
- 85% 2 year fix with adverse.
You can read the latest installment of that here.
Looking at a 90% 5 year fixed rate now, the lowest rate is 4.64%. In the space of 12 months mortgage rates have been fairly steady. There are a few interesting things I picked up on, that you can read on the latest post though.
House prices
This is a strange one, my eyes tell me house prices have come down over the year, maybe by around 10% give or take. Although this will vary from place to place. However when I read reports online I am reading that house prices are staying stable or even increasing in some areas! I even read something about them being at a record high!
In short, I can only conclude that I have no idea where house prices are at! But the market seems generally confident. A confident market with steady interest rates, I think thats about as good as we can ask for after the last few years.
Summary
For us personally its been a reasonable year. With the exception of last year, I have always struggled with the amount of business we take on. I have always had to refer business away to other brokers I know.
With Matt onboard, its meant we can now take on more business and pick things up. As with anyone new to a role it took a little while to bed in, but 7 months in and he has taken to Mortgage advising like a duck to water.
We have submitted over £8m in mortgages this year. This is more than last year, but not quite where we were in 2022.
We have implimented a new back office system which means we can offer more ways to do business with us to make it easier for you.
Rates have come down, house prices have come down (or gone up…). All things considered it feels like we should start 2025 well.