Marketwatch

6 February 2012 | By Andrew Montlake, Director, Coreco Group

Three-month LIBOR is down at 1.08%.
1-year money is down 0.03% at 0.97%
2-year money is down 0.03% at 1.23%
3-year money is down 0.05% at 1.27%
5-year money is down 0.08% at 1.52%

I read with interest last week the announcement from Facebook about its impending flotation - not bad to make a profit of $1bn in its eighth year of existence.

But one quote from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg struck a particular chord - “A more open world will encourage businesses to engage with their customers directly and authentically”.

I couldn’t agree more - being open and communicating clearly is to the benefit of all businesses.

A few people have contacted me about bridging loans. It seems more brokers are seeing clients who took out a bridge with no exit strategy or have misused it as a way of obtaining a property without going through the usual due diligence.

I would urge everyone to deal only with professional bridging firms and report instances of abuse. Bridging loans are useful if correctly advised on and the last thing our industry needs is to be lumped with the cowboys who abuse these types of products.

Despite another week of product withdrawals and rate rises with various notice periods - unusually, Nationwide caused most panic - there is much to be cheerful about.

In particular we have seen more lenders joining the 95% LTV space, mainly supported by building societies. Now there are a dozen or so products at this level including one from Newcastle Building Society fixed for two years at 5.95%.

On the subject of smaller lenders I feel I should mention Kent Reliance, Saffron, Harpenden and Furness, all of which are worth taking the time to look at as they are doing some good old-fashioned deals, with human underwriting in a sensible manner.

Rate-wise Furness has released a three-year discount at 3.29% with no fees and penalties only within the first two years up to 80% LTV.

One thing that is always important to brokers is service from lenders so please let me know your experiences as we will identify some lenders that are good to use if you need a speedy transaction.

Last week Abbey produced a remortgage offer in a day, while an HSBC Premier customer was told he couldn’t even speak to someone properly about a mortgage for two weeks - music to my ears of course.

I’ll end with another Zuckerberg quote - “We have a saying: Move fast and break things. We have another: The riskiest thing is to take no risks.”

We are of course not all Facebook, but I believe this year is the time for us as an industry to try new things and embrace change.

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