So, it’s been a hectic few months here at Clever Lending. After a really busy Q1, April turned up like a juggernaut quickly followed by May as the convoy!
The big news for me is that I landed my golden job as Head of Sales with Clever, but that was ultimately swamped amongst some great business figures.
In early April I had the amazing news that Steve Sanderson, a genuine Commercial, Bridging and Buy-to-Let ‘guru’ was heading back to Clever. As Specialist Buy-to-Let proves to be even more ‘specialist’, Steve’s return helps reinforce our edge in the modern distribution industry which never seems to let up in its need for people and companies to constantly adapt.
On the subject of adapting, can there be a more successful sector of the industry when it comes to the art of acclimatising than the second charge sector. As an industry that has been around for over 40 years now it has had to fight off constant criticism (some fair, most very unfair), bad press, and borrower apathy, and most surprisingly it has for too long lived outside the core business of the vast majority of advisers.
But it’s still here and again has fantastically adjusted, this time to become as core to the holistic advice process as a client’s main mortgage. It also now comes with the support of the big guns, the FCA, undying in their pursuit of ensuring that second charge advice is given to every client wishing to capital raise. All we need now is for all advisers to jump on board! There are some very positive signs out there with advisers working out that second charge lending is very much a short-term fix with an improved understanding of how the product should be structured within their clients financial planning.
The message is slowly getting across and making impact. Lenders are making big strides in educating the reticence that still exists, there has been great growth in new innovative products, rates have tumbled, criteria has been relaxed and processes have been sharpened. You need to remember that second charge lenders have a far bigger appetite to lend than the first charge lender market.
So with Q2 not far away from drawing to a close I believe we may see some real re-emergence of second charges, maybe not to the levels of the previous few years just yet but certainly some markers will be laid down to ensure my promotion-celebrating glass of fizz stays ‘half-full’.
So bring on the rest of 2017, we’re ready for you, and if it’s even half as good as the first half, then it’s going to be a blast … and I didn’t even mention the election!
