Over the past couple of years, I can’t tell you how many films I’ve revisited due to spending far more time at home than I’d have chosen to. I even went on a bit of an early 90s binge for a spell.
We’re talking Mrs Doubtfire, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Pretty Women, Groundhog Day… I could go on but I won’t. However, these films offer some classic scenes and lines which live long in the memory. One of the most memorable of these came from Tom Hanks in the baseball-inspired, and often underrated, classic A League of Their Own when he said: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
We’ve all had differing challenges to face from a personal and business perspective over the past two years. As an industry, we’ve been fortunate in the fact that we’ve been able to trade and largely prosper on the back of such a buoyant purchase and rental market. That’s not to say it’s been easy. Borrowing scenarios have changed, markets have become more complex and the advice process is even more specialised. This is certainly evident in the buy-to-let (BTL) sector and, according to a recent webinar poll conducted by Mercantile Trust, brokers continue to face plenty of challenges on a regular basis.
This poll outlined that 55% of brokers regularly come across difficulties when trying to find a solution for first-time landlords, while 50% stated that adverse credit posed problems for BTL applicants. Further, 30% of respondents said they often found it difficult to get cases approved because of affordability issues and/or rental calculations. In addition, one-fifth (20%) of respondents stated they have had problems with refurbishments for Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).
The data helps demonstrate the need for, and the value attached to, a specialist advice process and having access to lenders who can take a more practical, common-sense approach which is often driven by a manual underwriting process.
The BTL sector continues to grow and new lenders are emerging all the time to deliver flexible, innovative products to match landlords’ ever-evolving needs. This is great for the landlords and the market in general but, for advisers, understanding the constant raft of product, criteria, regulatory and policy changes – especially apparent during some interest rate uncertainly, swap rate volatility and wider economic pressures – can be arduous and time-consuming. We are operating in an extremely dynamic marketplace and for advisers who are not experienced in the more complex end of the BTL field, this can be somewhat daunting at the present time.
Placing complex BTL business certainly isn’t easy, if it was then everyone would be able to do it. It might not be exactly what Ton Hanks said but you get the gist. Thankfully, there are specialist BTL advisers out there who have the expertise, contacts and tech support to ensure that landlord clients don’t have to go underserved and can access the type of advice which allows them to hit a property-related home run.
Cat Armstrong is mortgage club director at Dynamo for Intermediaries
