Are specialist clients the key for advisors in 2023?

January 4, 2023 by Brendan O'Neill

Mortgage Advisors

Clients with specialist lending requirements are a growing part of the market. However, relevant lenders have reported that mortgage advisors are often unaware of this and are thus missing opportunities for clients and themselves.

According to research the number of people in the UK who have adverse credit is currently 7.91 million – whereas a year ago it was 6.29 million. That amounts to over 15% of UK residents. Therefore, if an advisor has 100 clients, over 15 of them will struggle to meet the criteria for standard lenders due to credit issues.

Then there are self-employed people, who account for over 13% of the workforce. Around 77% of them have said that they find it hard to get a mortgage from mainstream lenders because they are self-employed and – again – there will be some of those people in the databases of advisors with the CeMAP qualification.

Failing to identify people in these situations as specialist customers means that advisors are making it more difficult for themselves to find suitable loans, so both the advisor and the customer lose out. There are lenders out there who have made those who don’t fit the profiles of the big firms into their business models.

For example, Pepper Money has focused its attentions on people who are self-employed. That means its application processes and criteria were designed with them in mind.

Clients whose financial circumstances rule them out of the mainstream mortgage market are growing in number and will be key to success for advisors in 2023.