Mortgage market rehabilitation signs are all around us, as Mortgage Brain reports a big increase in the number of different deals available through mortgage advisers.
Technically speaking I should say mortgage 'intermediaries', as this covers not only mortgage brokers but also IFAs and other kinds of middlemen (and there's really a big need to clear up all the terminology, but that's dealt with thoroughly in the FSA's mortgage market review paper mentioned yesterday...)
So, back to the market news: a 15 per cent increase in one month in the number of schemes your mortgage adviser can theoretically provide.
The total stands at 2,868, which might be a lot lower than the 10,000+ options available during the peak years but is still quite a jump compared to June, July and August. Why is this good news? It means that
- there'll be stronger competition between lenders in the intermediary channel, and
- there'll be stronger competition between going-direct-to-your-lender and using-an-adviser services... and for most of the credit crunch, it's advisers that have felt the squeeze more keenly than banks.
In other words, an uplift in product availability for intermediaries helps to safeguard an endangered species: your savvy, personal-service and impartial local mortgage adviser.
Interestingly too, the products showing the biggest increase were tracker mortgages: a 32 per cent increase to 666 products. Compare that to fixed rate deals (up 14 per cent to 1,804) and variable rates (dropping 4 per cent). Many advisers will be recommending not trackers per se, but only the best tracker mortgages with low ERCs or no tie-ins at all, so the added choice will be welcome.
Higher loan-to-value mortgages showed a boost of 8 per cent and buy-to-let deals were also booted by a generous 20 per cent, which is welcome for advisers as both types of deal are in demand from their clients.
However, the bad news is for adverse-credit clients. Advisers don't have many more arrows in their quiver for sub prime woes: numbers of deals are static at around 250, an all time low in the Mortgage Brain figures, which reminds the industry and borrowers alike that we're still in turbulent times.
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