A busy start to 2023 from the RMA & BMA teams

The mortgage market in 2022 could be defined in one word: changeable. And that is perhaps putting it mildly. 2023 does seem though so far to be less changeable, and there are some signs of relative stability in the mortgage market.

January 2023 was actually our busiest month for quite a while, after a sleepy December. We’ve had numerous appointments booked in for mortgage advice, all positive signs of some normality returning we hope.

The Bank of England reviewed the base rate in February & it went up by 0.5% – THIS DOESN’T MEAN THAT THE FIXED RATES THAT LENDERS ARE OFFERING WILL INCREASE. If you would like to have a chat about this then please get in touch.

The team have been working at full tilt to meet this surge in demand, as well as enhancing their own knowledge with various companies like:

Vitality, West One, AIG Life, Skipton, Barclays, Platform, Aconveyancing, Generation Home, HSBC, Legal & General, LiveMore, The Mortgage Lender, Holloway Friendly to name but a few.

Here are some of the team holding our weekly training sessions with some of the companies mentioned above:

 

We’d love to share with you some of the social side of our business:

Most of the team ended January with a team night out at The Covered Wagon, a local Indian restaurant & grill close to our Kings Norton office. We enjoyed amazing food and service and had plenty of laughs amongst the lassi.

Teya, who is a mortgage administrator in both of our offices, bought her first house last month, which she and the team are rightly proud of. We said goodbye too to Lisa Sargeant who was a Trainee Advisor. We wish Lisa all of the best in her new role.

On the mortgage side, the word busy is perhaps an understatement!

Gemma Groves and Kate attended the Primis Mortgage Network 2023 kick off event for the Midlands and it was Gemma’s first as a director. We received numerous recognitions for our work last year.

 

Lauren Fry was awarded HSBC Top Ten brokers for Midlands for mortgage applications in 2022. Fully deserved too!

The clock goes TikTok? 

No we didn’t take to dancing and singing but we asked clients for a short video testimonial about the service they received from us.  We have been so overwhelmed with videos Kate is thinking about making it a more permanent thing. We received so many, and watching them made us really proud of the service we offer.

The future

We are very excited to welcome a new bilingual speaking mortgage advisor (English & Polish). Kate McTernan and Louise Lewis have already been on tour and have held a mortgage clinic in the Smart Homes office in Shirley on Saturday 4thFebruary 2023.

In other news, we were delighted to see Kaye and Andrew complete

Kate first met Kaye and Andrew in 2020. They knew what they wanted; to move out of rented and buy a home together with their children.

It was a complex case for many reasons. Nothing could be done immediately, and Kate made both Kaye and Andrew aware of this and they agreed on a plan together. They are self-employed and the income structure was complex. We worked with them and their accountants for over 2 years and in 2022 they were finally in a position to try and buy a new home. Once they had found a property it wasn’t straightforward, they encountered the volatile market conditions of 2022. The 1st lender declined but we replaced it and successfully got them an offer with the second lender we approached. Smooth sailing? Problems in the chain delayed things further and the mortgage offer was about to expire. Of course between Kate, their case manager Yasmin, solicitor and estate agents, we got there in the end.

Three years on, they have bought their first home!

Sometimes we can’t help a client instantly on their first appointment but we are very happy to work with clients over a long period of time and don’t expect every client to be able to get a mortgage immediately.

Are you looking to remortgage?

We deal frequently with remortgages and time here is of the essence. It’s often a great idea to plan ahead. If your mortgage deal is about to end in 2023 and you want to explore staying with your current lender, change product with them or port the mortgage to a new lender, call or email our team today to book an appointment.

In our next blog post, we will be looking forward and backwards to 2022 and 2023

One taster we will leave you with is this.

Fixed rates are no longer the singular choice for buyers and those remortgaging. Trackers and variable options are suddenly being looked at anew as they often have greater flexibility and low or no penalties for leaving.

We will though talk more about that in our next blog post. We hope you’ve enjoyed this one too.

If you need any mortgage or protection advice, do call or email us at your earliest convenience.

 

 

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Our Location

301 Pershore Road South, Kings Norton, Birmingham, B30 3EX

 

Birmingham Mortgage Advice is a trading name of McTernan Financial Ltd who are an Appointed Representative of PRIMIS Mortgage Network, a trading name of Advance Mortgage Funding Ltd. Advance Mortgage Funding Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Registered Office: Prospect House, Church Green West, Redditch B97 4DJ. Registered in England and Wales. Company number: 09168296.

YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE

Most Buy-to-Let Mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The guidance and/or advice contained within this website is subject to the UK regulatory regime and is therefore primarily targeted at consumers based in the UK.