Hello everyone, welcome to the first of our Mortgage newsletters for 2026; how did we get to March and I haven’t even finished eating my chocolate from Christmas?! As usual in our industry, things continue to move at a pace and there is a lot going on. At Paradigm, we are continually looking to give you that edge - be it on propositions, commercials or information, and I can assure you 2026 will be no different. I am also very confident the areas we are looking at will help your business, advisers and administrators. One such area that Bob Hunt, our CEO, is writing about and canvassing opinion on is around mandatory advice for First Time Buyers; you can expect to see some articles and video in this regard, with Lenders and advisers, your support for this important area would be most appreciated. If you are reading this introduction for the first time as a Paradigm member, you are very welcome and I hope your experience of dealing with Paradigm is a good one! If you are an existing firm, welcome back and thanks for being with us - we really do value your support. So what has been going on in the first quarter? Despite the external global conflicts, the housing and lending market did appear to be in a stable position, however, 9th March (and arguably the week before too) saw a spike upwards as SWAPs jumped. Lenders quickly reacted with many withdrawing products immediately or with little notice, whilst others priced upwards to stem the flows they were seeing. This movement brought back memories for many of Covid and Truss all rolled into one. Talk about how a market can move, from being 85% sure the Bank of England (BoE) was on course to cut the base rate in April, we were now reading on Tuesday 10th March economists reporting the BoE will not now be cutting base rates in 2026. Perhaps a little premature and it is anecdotal, but they are also predicting because of the new inflationary pressures arising again that there could be a 10/20Bhps increase on the base rate by the year end. The problem this uncertainty brought in terms of SWAPs is that Lenders are finding it difficult to find a price point, although at the time of writing SWAPs have eased back slightly, they are now circa 60 Bhps higher. Whilst we would not advocate trying to predict rates, for an idea of what could happen look at the Bond markets particularly for the UK to see how SWAPs may perform. Richard Howes Director of Mortgages Paradigm Mortgage Market Update 04 MORTGAGE NEWSLETTER
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