boydens.co.uk Finances 20 My big consideration here was for clients who already had a mortgage that was due to come off of its fixed rate over the next few months, where again options were limited, but we did have some available to us as brokers in order to assist in this circumstance. Restarting the market After the initial period of lockdown, the first market to reopen was thankfully the housing market. It did seem a bit strange that viewing houses came back quicker than a lot of things, but I must say, in my position, it was nice that some of my clients were able to get out there again and start looking at their options to move. It was a while until the lenders followed suit and enabled borrowing at higher loan to values again, bringing these back very slowly which made it tough for clients who were looking to get on with moving. The Government did reduce the Bank of England base rate to 0.1%, which helped and is the lowest that this has ever been in the bank’s 325-year history. Doing so enabled mortgage rates to remain low and, slowly but surely, lenders began to gain confidence and release products at higher loan to values once more. Although it already seems a while ago, I remember one big lender coming to market with a restricted number of products at 90% loan to value before other large lenders were willing to do so. The result was an abundance of brokers logging onto the lender’s application system first thing in the morning in order to try to secure products for their clients in a situation not too dissimilar to a scramble for tickets for a gig or festival on the day of release. It was quite bizarre, but something that was hugely important to communicate to my applicants in order to get across the challenges that we both would face if they were looking at purchasing during this time. As brokers, we just couldn’t be assured of products being available for clients, so it was a period that wasn’t without its challenges. As the Government started to lift restrictions, they had also brought in a couple of big policy changes, which contributed to a frantic time in the housing market for us all. Furlough was of course assisting many of the population who couldn’t go out to work, and on top of this a stamp duty holiday was implemented. This meant that the housing market took off in a big way as people saw the potential to save thousands of pounds in stamp duty liability by moving during this time. Working from home Working in East Anglia, I also saw lifestyle changes adding a silent third intensifier to our local market. I had a lot of contact from people looking to move out of London and the surrounding areas as they perhaps saw the requirement of a daily commute as a thing of the past. Our area saw a wave of demand as a result, and I definitely know of buyers who felt it was the right time to look for properties that were a bit larger, perhaps with outside space that were that bit further from their normal workplace. I also feel that during lockdown some people started to despise the four walls that they had been forced to spend so much time in, and just felt that now was the time for a change. “The housing market took off in a big way as people saw the potential to save thousands of pounds in stamp duty.”
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