"For those advisers who can work their existing client base well and also tie up new ones, we should be able to predict some strong volumes and, therefore, income."
What I think however can be set in stone is that this Government has no wish to return to the wholesale and universal measures it introduced in mid-March this year. It seems much more prepared to work locally and, even with individuals and households perhaps being unable to mix socially mix, this would seem to count out any attempts to stop people working or, for example, closing schools again.
That is clearly good news for the housing and mortgage market who I doubt would stomach a return to the full shutdown of the market we saw earlier in the year. If I’m right on this, it also means that activity levels should hopefully be maintained throughout the rest of 2020 and, dare I say this, well into next year.
The other positive here is that, even if demand and activity do start to plateau, that still leaves a significant amount of business to aim at and, for those advisers who can work their existing client base well and also tie up new ones, we should be able to predict some strong volumes and, therefore, income.
I was also pleased to see that advisory firms appear to feel much more confident about what may be coming Covid-19-wise than others have predicted. Recent research from United Trust Bank revealed that 81% of property and commercial finance brokers said they were prepared for a ‘second wave’ and what that could mean for them.
While 32% said they were busier than this time last year, 27% said they were as busy as last year, and 17% said they were busier than they had ever been. This appears to be translating into firm owners looking at expansion and how they might continue to meet demand - 21% said they were going to add permanent staff to the firm.
I suspect that number would be even greater if we could have just a little bit more certainty in the marketplace currently. Already, there appears to be a growing groundswell of support for an extension to the stamp duty holiday at the end of March next year, in the hope that the Chancellor doesn’t create a cliff-edge of sorts.
And I also have some sympathy for the argument that suggested the Government may have moved too soon in terms of introducing the holiday, because – from our own experience – I know that we were already seeing a big increase in transactions and demand immediately post-lockdown, even before the intervention in mid-July.
It is clearly too late to go back on this decision now, but perhaps with hindsight the powers-that-be might have held back a little until it was clear that some of the steam was going out of the market. Certainly, by mid-July that was not the case.
However, let’s focus on the positive here and it comes in the form of advisers being in demand perhaps like never before. That positive trail of business is clearly feeding into advisers’ mindsets about what they can achieve now, and how they might best place themselves for more pandemic-related ups and downs.
It will, of course be interesting to see what happens to the market after the furlough scheme is brought to an end, but hopefully some of the more negative potential outcomes have been headed off at the pass by the Chancellor’s new job support scheme. We know it is not in the same league as what was provided with furloughing but it may allow more jobs to be saved, albeit with the acknowledgement that we are likely to see an increase in unemployment.
For advisers, the focus must be on the here and now, with one eye on the future. Clearly the best way to prepare for what’s ahead is to keep writing significant levels of business and taking all opportunities when they are presented via your client interactions. We’ve said it many times, but the mortgage should be the gateway to all kinds of product and service diversification, including conveyancing, and by exercising your advantage here, you should be ready for whatever might come next. Let’s hope it continues to be positive.
