Monty's Mortgage Blog

27.08.08 by Andrew Montlake

The London Mortgage Broker Bubble

As a London Mortgage Broker it is sometimes difficult to look at the country as whole and take our heads out of the “London Bubble”.


However, it is interesting to look at some of the more bespoke issues that we are seeing here in the face of the national news showing that house prices are still falling, house builders are struggling and mortgage brokers around the land reportedly going under.


One item which is interesting is that the super-rich property market, that’s £10 million plus, seems to be quite buoyant. I overheard two young middle-aged ladies in the coffee shop in Knightsbridge the other day commenting that “I don’t know what all this credit crunch talk is, I have not seen any sign of it whatsoever, although I did manage to pick up two pairs of shoes for £300 which was very reasonable”.


Obviously this is a world away from most of us but if this market is moving it is good for us all as eventually it will trickle down.


We have also seen a lot of property portfolio landlordsgetting excited about the “deals” that are coming their way as property prices even out, and we need a few more lenders other than Birmingham Midshires and The Mortgage Works to come out with some more competitive Buy-To-Let rates. I still think that this is a good market to be in as a lender in London, especially as purchase prices are now more realistic.


I am leaving New Build out of this for the time being, and whilst there is much sympathy for the likes of Taylor Wimpey et al, many builders insistence on building the same type of property in the same central city areas could never have been sustained. However, as the market comes back these properties will no doubt grow in value as demand will far outstrip supply.


The Commercial Mortgage world is moving rapidly as well because of the fact that many big developers are having their traditional funding lines from their existing banks clipped, we are also getting in front of some big names who we may not have in the past.


It would be interesting to hear from brokers in other areas on some of the issues or positives that they face locally and I know many that say that London Mortgage Brokers do not understand the real issues.


The main thing everyone needs is the stamp duty debacle to get sorted now. We cannot wait much longer for this to be sorted and if GB thinks he can get away with it by sprinkling some of the Team GB gold dust over him he has another think coming.


Sort it please, now.

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