"We’ve started seeing people coming to us with second charge enquiries on the simple basis that the first charge market was not prepared"
Talking on the podcast, Darren Perry, national account manager at Brightstar Financial, said: “We’ve started seeing people coming to us with second charge enquiries on the simple basis that the first charge market was not prepared, and not able to serve the needs of their clients. Further advances have disappeared and reduced LTVs on first charge mortgages meant that anyone looking to raise capital was stuck.”
Matthew Batte, senior relationship manager at Shawbrook Bank, agreed, saying: “We’ve been seeing a lot of this, particularly over the last couple of months. First charge lenders haven’t been lending for capital raising and that opens up an opportunity for seconds.”
Simon Burnell, head of mortgage and bridging products at United Trust Bank, added: “Debt consolidation is still around two thirds of the business that we are looking at. Maybe remortgaging in the specialist market has fallen by the wayside and brokers have said, you can have your money now if you go down the second charge route, where there is still capital raising and LTVs available at 75% across the industry.”
Rob Barnard, director of intermediaries at Masthaven Bank, thought there was growing appetite amongst brokers to diversify into second charges, saying: “One thing that has been loud and clear is that mortgage brokers can’t just rely on mortgage business. They want to look at seconds and bridging. As we come out of this there will be more multi-skilled brokers.”
The podcast also featured discussion about the current demand for second charge mortgages, future opportunities and challenges – as well as the role that education will have in helping the market return to surpassing £100m a month in completions as it achieved earlier this year.
The full episode is available now and can be found at: https://www.mortgagealliance.org.uk/news/second-charge-podcast-now-live.
