Where to we begin with 2020?
It had so much promise, you could get away with funky glasses on New Years Eve, it was the start of a new decade and it was the beginning of the end of endless arguments about Brexit.
The big question though… How silly do these look now?
Lets put aside Corona Virus, I think we are all sick of it and hopefully we can start to draw a line in the sand with the start of 2021.
How has 2020 been for the Mortgage industry?
It has been good in a nutshell. But I will write a bit more otherwise its going to be a very short post.
January to March started well, January and February were busier than we expected. March was busy until around the 15th and then it seemed to slow down and a few days later we went into national lockdown.
April was more or less a write off as we spent it sat in the garden enjoying the sunshine and having BBQs with the family.
Once the lockdown was lifted in May, we were all expecting to be quiet but things went well and we were busy from May through until November.
At some point in September it had become our best ever year, which is crazy to think that we spent April doing nothing and then expected the rest of the year to be a write off, oh and not forgetting there was a global catastrophe going on but yet we had our busiest year.
It has been our best ever year and we are around 40% up on 2019, so it is not just a slight increase, we have really worked very hard this year.
The other big news is that we moved into our new offices in Cheadle Hulme towards the end of November, this will work well when things do return to normal as we have better access to our office (longer hours) and we have a little more flexibility with what we can do in there also, that should help us as we plan to expand.
The Success Stories
Last year we started writing about our Success Stories, that was in line with feedback we were getting from people getting in touch. They had told us they had given up all hope of getting a mortgage but after reading a similar story decided to get in touch.
This year has been slightly different to our normal success stories, primarily because lenders have tightened up this year. Some closed the doors to new business and those that did remain pulled back in one form or another. Some of the success stories this year seem quite tame compared to last year, but actually they are just as good stories because of where lenders are at in the current climate, but even putting that aside, there are still a few good stories out there that would have made the list last year.
These include:
The customer currently in an IVA,
The customer with a full house of credit problems,
Despite everything going on, we are still getting complicated applications through.
The end of 2020 and into 2021
What do we expect in the coming months? If anyone knows the answer to this, please could you tell us?
It is very difficult to decide what will happen going forward. For me, I think it will be a slower year than usual. On the plus side, we will hopefully have people returning to work and some more stability on that front. The negatives however I think will outweigh that. 2021 will see the end of the current HTB scheme, the end of the stamp duty holiday and after a mamouth 2020, there must be less people wanting to move home next year.
I think we still have an ok year, but probably a quieter one than we have had for the last few years.
For us however, we are in a good place. We have worked on the assumption that even if business drops by 50% we can see out 2021 comfortably. I think that bodes well especially if you are thinking of using a Mortgage Broker.
We WILL be around to help you through your application from start to finish. If things do get difficult, there are inevitably going to be casualties and there will be some applicants who do not have their brokers on hand through til completion.
Thank you!
This year has been our best year in terms of business submitted. Obviously there have been a lot of negative parts to the year, but lets concentrate on the good bits.
Obviously we can only do that with the support of our Mortgage Success customers new and old and so I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support this year and every year. Have a great Christmas and new year.
Heres to 2021, lets hope these ones stand the test of time.
