easier, faster, and cheaper for consumers to speak to mortgage lenders. It clearly overlooks the role of mortgage advisers and put simply the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) says “You simply cannot deliver the consumer duty by removing advice.” They go onto say, “The duty requires firms to act in ways that deliver good outcomes, support consumer understanding, and empower effective decision-making, none of which are achieved by steering borrowers away from personal advice. The proposals set out by the FCA go in the opposite direction.” At Paradigm we can’t help but agree, it appears there has been intense lobbying in this area by the big banks who perhaps are not comfortable with over 90% of mortgages being transacted through mortgage brokers and are maybe looking for a way to claw back share into their direct arms, or through a cheaper distribution route such as aggregators. Indeed to this last distribution area, be aware some lenders are dual pricing through their separate brands on these sites which might not get picked up on, but it is an area we are watching as it penalises brokers when trying to get the best deals for their clients. Our CEO Bob Hunt has written an excellent article in this regard, and it can be found here: https://www.paradigm.co.uk/blog/ execution-only-or-consumer-duty-ofcare.html Looking at the market, there does not appear to be any let up in activity either through the lens of a broker or lender. I am sure this is helped by average mortgage pricing being sub-5% and continuing to decline, according to Rightmove. Average mortgage rates for two- and five-year fixed rates are under 5%, with the cheapest rates coming to sub-4%, figures show. I am sure the annual rate of house price growth which increased marginally in May 05 MORTGAGE NEWSLETTER Continued on next page... to 3.5% according to Nationwide’s latest house price index, with a 3.2% rise reported by the Halifax helps this momentum. The Nationwide’s chief economist Robert Gardner said: “Mortgage approvals data suggests that market activity appears to be holding up well following the end of the stamp duty holiday.” Recent research from 27Tech also backs this up with market activity high in May. Total search volumes rose strongly month on month, and product availability reached a new record high of more than 25,000 live options on their platform. By way of a snapshot they reported in May 2025, compared to April 2025: • Total searches up 12.3% • Purchase mortgage searches (nonFTB) were up 5.2% • Remortgage searches were up 7.6% • Buy To Let purchase mortgage searches were up 4.3% • Buy To Let remortgage searches were up 7.3% The 13th May set a new record, with advisers generating 30,120 ESIS documents in a single day – nearly double the average daily volume seen so far this year. Perhaps this activity is dovetailing into the recent Government activity against the backdrop of their desire to build 1.5m homes by 2030. Indeed in the recent spending review they announced £39bn investment in affordable and social housing. Both the homelessness charity Crisis and the National Housing Federation saw this as excellent news with Crisis describing the pledge as a "determined political signal that housing really matters" and the NHF saying “the £39bn investment is "transformative". I couldn’t help but smile recently when reading around the 1.5 million homes target of an unintended consequence of this desire where an historic village in Cambridge has a plan - already granted permission - to add 153 new homes to the existing community of 350 houses.
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