When asked what kind of impact a vote to leave would have at today's FSE Manchester, 82% of audience members answered ‘negative’. John Malone, Chairman of Front Events, also suggested that the biggest threat to the economy over Q2 and Q3 this year would be a Brexit.
Malone said: “I believe a Vote to Leave next month would create an enormous amount of confusion in the markets and would have a major impact not just on the City but also on many businesses throughout the UK. I also don’t believe that this would just impact the UK over the next couple of quarters but will run for a number of years to come.”
Simon Cradock, Corporate Account Manager at Nationwide for Intermediaries and The Mortgage Works, agreed that the industry seems to want the UK stay in the EU.
Discussing the UK housing and mortgage markets, Cradock suggested the increased number of purchase transactions completed during Q1, prior to the introduction of the stamp duty increase deadline, should have normalised by July this year.
He also urged the industry to understand the large number of cash purchases that had taken place during that period.
Cradock commented: “It’s been suggested that of the 60,000 transactions [which went through in March] which were purely down to the increase in stamp duty, 28,000 of those were cash purchases. We wait to see whether they will be flipped to remortgage over the next six months. Remortgaging is certainly an area that continues to grow.”
