A career in mortgages
Matthew is all about setting and achieving goals of his own, so let’s meet the most sporting member of the Professional Contractor Mortgages team as he turns 40.
Matthew cut his teeth in financial services by joining the Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society straight from college, working on the helpline for existing mortgage customers. After a short spell at a mortgage broker, he returned to the C & G to become a mortgage adviser after taking his CeMAP qualifications. Matthew went on to become the key adviser for their mortgage and savings customers across the south, covering branches across the south of England and eventually working his way up to manager of the Southampton branch.
Around 10 years ago Matthew set himself two major goals – to get married to the woman of his dreams and to join a specialist contractor mortgage broker. He achieved them both (only a few months apart) and now has a young family and a deep understanding of the needs of contractors and the difficulties they face getting the finance they deserve.
Don’t panic, confidence will return
Decades of experience in the mortgage market, across diverse products and through good times and bad, mean Matthew has seen it all. This gives him a great perspective on the recent chaos in the political arena and the knock-on effect it is having on the economy and the housing market in particular:
“It’s been a rocky time lately but my experiences have made me a better broker. I’ve been around a while now and I’ve seen everything from interest-only endowment mortgages holders struggling to clear their debt to lenders withdrawing their products across the board at the start of Covid. My job is to help people understand the market and the implications of the changes going through and I’m sure that confidence will gradually return. People are waiting to see what will happen, but inflation falling is giving people more confidence and there are some great deals to be had in the property market now. I don’t see a big fall in house prices as demand will always outstrip supply, and I can see the housing market coming back in the spring to summer period.”
Remortgage shock
Despite being cautiously positive overall, Matthew suggests that remortgaging is one area of the market that is in for something of a shock in 2023:
“More than a million fixed-rate mortgages will be expiring this year, and pretty much all of them will have been set at historically low rates. Rates have jumped significantly and some these customers have never known base rates over 2%, so their next mortgage rate could be something of a shock to them. At Cleerly, we will be advising clients on affordability and guiding people around all the refinancing options available to them.”