The Intermediary –- May 2026 - Flipbook - Page 38
RESIDENTIAL
Opinion
Faster, but not
fast enough
I
n the mortgage market, speed
is oen taken as a sign of
progress. A quicker process is
beer for brokers, borrowers,
and lenders. Creating
certainty of decision quickly
removes some of the anxiety from the
home buying journey. Buying a home
should be an exciting and enjoyable
moment in our lives.
Our recent broker survey showed
that 76% of brokers believe the
industry has made real strides in
improving how efficiently standard
applications move through the system
over the past two years – that progress
should be recognised.
But speed on its own is not the full
story. The more important question is
this who exactly has the process been
made quicker for?
Our latest research suggests that
while the mortgage application
process is becoming more efficient for
straightforward cases, it still struggles
to consistently support borrowers
whose circumstances fall outside a
standard paern.
Automated income and credit
checks are now the most common
stage where complex income cases fail
or stall, with 17% of brokers citing this
as the primary challenge.
A further 16% report issues arising
at the initial affordability assessment
or decision in principle (DIP) stage,
while another 16% say these delays are
causing cases to fall through entirely.
That maers, because it shows
where the real friction now sits. The
mainstream process may be moving
more quickly, but the pressure points
have not gone away. Instead, they have
concentrated around the moments
where a case requires more context,
interpretation, or judgement.
In other words, the market is
geing beer at processing the
conventional but not yet good enough
at understanding the complex.
These borrowers are not edge cases.
They reflect how many people work
36
The Intermediary | May 2026
today, with incomes that do not
always fit the traditional mould of
mainstream mortgage lending.
Brokers say the groups most affected
by current affordability approaches
are people returning from career
breaks (32%), applicants combining
PAYE and freelance income (31%),
and those with irregular or seasonal
earnings (29%).
Yet, all too oen, the process
still works best when income is
simple, employment is linear and
a borrower’s circumstances can be
easily interpreted by automated rules.
Where a case needs more explanation,
the risk of delay rises.
When that happens, the
consequences are not just
administrative – a delayed decision
can mean a purchase deadline missed,
a product rate expired, or a remortgage
that becomes harder to place.
A borrower who may be entirely
capable of sustaining homeownership
can lose out simply because their
case takes longer to assess than a
straightforward salaried application.
The deeper issue beyond efficiency
is relevance. A mortgage process
can only be considered fit for today’s
market if it reflects the way people
actually live and earn.
If it works well for simple cases but
becomes unreliable or opaque as soon
as a borrower falls outside standard
assumptions, then it is only partially
doing its job.
Brokers are clear about where
the gap now sits. A third (33%)
say beer handling of complex or
non-standard cases would have the
single biggest positive impact on
their ability to place business. This
suggests the next opportunity for
lenders is to reduce turnaround times
on standard journeys while also
improving what happens when a case
requires flexibility.
Around a third (33%) also point
to clearer tracking of case progress,
beer integration between broker
AARON SHINWELL
is chief lending officer
at Nottingham Building Society
systems and lenders (32%) and faster
decision making (32%) as priorities.
Together, these findings point to a
market that has improved on basic
processing speed, but still needs
stronger visibility, coordination
and consistency when cases are
less straightforward.
What should happen next?
First, lenders must look closely at
the stages where complex cases most
oen come under strain. Automated
checks have an important role to play,
but they must be flexible enough to
recognise real – life income paerns
rather than screening out cases
too early because they are harder
to categorise.
Second, there is a clear need for
beer transparency as cases move
through the system. When an
application slows down, brokers and
borrowers need to understand why.
Third, the market needs to become
beer at distinguishing between risk
and complexity, which are not the
same thing. A borrower with blended
income may require more assessment,
but that does not automatically
make them higher risk. Someone
returning from a career break may
need more context, but that is not
the same as saying they cannot
sustain repayments. Responsible
lending depends on making those
distinctions properly.
The market has already shown that
it can improve. Faster application
processes prove that, but the next
step is to improve the precision of
the process and ensure the system
works just as well for complex,
credible borrowers as it does for
straightforward cases. ●
