Mortgage Market Review

The Mortgage Market Review (MMR) implementation will be here on 26th April and the

biggest concern for the industry is that we will see a downturn in all but the safest lending over the coming months.

It is likely that we will see a reduction in the number of mortgages being approved immediately after the 26th April as lenders battle with their systems to ensure that they are working correctly and don’t get tied up with too many complicated cases.

While this slowdown is unlikely to be anything other than a short term adjustment it could damage confidence given lenders have only just started to relax their lending. The Council of Mortgage Lenders has already warned of a ‘wobble’ in lending during this period.

There are rumours that lenders are now planning to boost buy to let lending to help them meet their lending targets. This is because buy to let is unregulated and so lenders are free to ramp up this type of lending so that they are able to keep their overall lending volumes stable for a few months before returning to the residential market later in the year.