Welcome back to those of you who managed to get away on a well-earned break, safe in the knowledge that August would be a nice chilled-out month and everything would slow down. Oh dear — many of us were wrong on that front!

While it is, of course, great to be busy, I was kind of hoping that we would all have a chance to take stock, lenders could clear pipelines and return to slicker service levels, as could conveyancers, which would alleviate some of the completion stickiness we have seen this year.

Over 100,000 people say they will cancel their direct debit for energy. This could have serious consequences and we need to educate and help our clients accordingly

But the sheer amount of activity last month even caused several lenders to decide to stop taking on new business for a period while they dealt with the sheer weight of applications, which seemed eminently sensible.

Of course, it is not that simple, but there is a worry about the toll this is all taking on everyone in the industry. As a country, and as an economy, we have not worked through or dealt with the effects of Brexit yet, let alone the aftershocks of the pandemic and the continuous issues posed by the war in Ukraine.

It may be an unpopular opinion but I can’t help wondering how the whole working-from-home movement has helped to cause and prolong some of these issues, as well as contribute to more anxiety and mental health issues than people realise. As a species, we need and thrive with people around us, to give us that additional knowledge share — halving problems — for reassurance and just to be able to vent.

But this is a topic for much cleverer people than an amateur psychologist. I wonder what Festinger, Freud or Jung would have to say on the matter.

Which economic policy?

By the time you read this we may know the identity of our new prime minister, the fourth in six years, and this is important because of how the two remaining candidates differ in their views on the economy.

While trying not to get too political, we may see higher inflation — Citi suggests it could reach 18% in January — and interest rates for longer with one candidate than with the other, and how they address the cost-of-living crisis will without a doubt have an effect on our clients and therefore our very own businesses.

It would be good if we could make it harder to pull out between offer and exchange

By all accounts it could affect our regulators too, with Liz Truss reportedly considering remerging into one the Financial Conduct Authority, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Payment Systems Regulator, while also challenging the independence of the Bank of England after dissing it for being too slow in increasing the Bank base rate.

Let us hope our foray back to the 1970s ends after comparisons of hot summers, rather than winters of discontent with strikes and power cuts. If we can prevent the equivalent of one little boy’s tears when his record player stopped during a power cut while playing the new Abba Arrival album, that would be something. I have — sorry, my friend has — never forgotten that scar.

I can’t help wondering how the whole working-from-home movement has helped to cause and prolong some of these issues

The housing market should be high on the agenda for the new PM but sadly I do not hold out much hope other than for the latest new housing minister and a series of blind promises and ill-thought-out schemes. We really need an efficient market that works for private owners, but also strong private rental and social housing sectors.

The 300,000 homes target will no doubt be shaved as both leadership candidates have bemoaned it, and the promise of yet another government inquiry into how to simplify the homebuying process is greeted with a yawn rather than a buzz of optimism.

It would be good if we could make it harder to pull out between offer and exchange, ending terms like gazumping, gazundering and the new one, gazanging (when a seller agrees to sell their property to a buyer but later decides not to sell it), with a sensible process and new technology. All I would say is, please ensure you speak to all stakeholders, including brokers.

No wonder those coming off five-year fixes are confused and bewildered by the new rates facing them

Back to interest rates and there has been a new spike recently of lenders hiking rates once more, no doubt in response to another surge in swap rates that made me check the following several times. In the money markets, three-month Sonia has flown away, up 0.26% at 2.52%, and swap rates have jetted off into the clouds on holiday and refused to come back.

Since the previous column:

• 2-year money is up 1.07% at 3.82%
• 3-year money is up 0.96% at 3.66%
• 5-year money is up 0.76% at 3.34%
• 10-year money is up 0.52% at 2.96%

It really is an extraordinary change in such a short time. No wonder those coming off five-year fixes are confused and bewildered by the new rates facing them.

Remortgaging will continue to spike this year with broker darlings Accord reporting another £100bn of mortgages set to mature by the end of 2022. This will be important business for brokers; we need to make sure we are on top of our clients and advising them early.

There is a worry about the toll this is all taking on everyone in the industry

It was interesting to read the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries’ note on how many more people had switched and protected themselves over the past few years, with “74% of residential mortgage borrowers now protected from rate rises for at least the next two years, with 37% on fixes for two years plus”.

The FCA had been concerned that too many borrowers were sitting on rates higher than they needed, and the success of brokers and their increased market share have helped to deliver better financial outcomes for many.

Affordability

The energy price rises and their effect on everyone’s affordability will dominate the months ahead, and we are already seeing signs from lenders of how this plays out. Some are looking at the rise in the cost of living, especially energy, and checking their affordability calculations more carefully. On the risk spectrum, people more likely to be affected are those borrowing 95% loan-to-value on a stricter budget, while those less likely to be seriously affected have strong incomes over £100k. We could see changes in policy to mirror this.

What is worrying is the growing movement of the Don’t Pay campaign, as highlighted by Pepper Money. Reportedly, over 100,000 people say they will cancel their direct debit for energy. This could have serious consequences and we need to educate and help our clients accordingly.

The promise of yet another inquiry is met with a yawn

Where lenders are concerned, we have seen a few criteria changes. Accord launched its Boost LTI range more successfully than Nasa’s Artemis, for those with over £70k income looking for 5 to 5.5 times income. NatWest has increased its LTI to 5.5 times for those earning more than £75k or £100k jointly. It is also increasing its maximum loan sizes and maximum LTVs for new-build buy-to-let to 75% LTV. Good news too from HSBC, which is increasing the mortgage product switch window from 90 days to 120 days.

Hampshire Trust Bank has raised lending limits on its holiday-let proposition to include 10 short-term let properties within a portfolio, and increased the maximum loan to £1.5m. BM Solutions has reduced its minimum age at application from 25 to 21.

Andrew Montlake is a director of Coreco