The week that was 17th May

Schools nearly out for the half term break and as the Gaffer and myself will both be off on our holidays next week we wanted to bring you the Week 20 Activity Report a few days ahead of schedule…. And as the Johnny v Amber / Wagatha cases rumble on, Boris eats humble pie and “Mamma Mia” – Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida were all reunited for the first time in 40 years to mark the launch of their virtual show run – (the gaffer is literally chomping on the bit and gutted that he wasn’t invited to the premier although he does have two shows to look forwards to!)….. I am delighted to report that you completed £24,515,785 of lending in Week 20 across 76 deals.

MORTGAGEFORCE HEADLINES

Top of the charts was cycling supremo, Laura Sayers with £2,981,325 of lending across 2 cases, her whopping £2,025,075 deal with Metro Bank earning her this weeks “Big Time Bertha” Award. Then in second place was Chris Taylor with £2,326,998 of lending across 3 cases and Warren Middleton with £1,777,392 across 8 cases.

Other “jubilant” performances in terms of case volume and value then came from Sean McGeough, Zak Abdul Karim, Russell Davies, Steve Hankins, Sarah Norman and Sandy McIlvenna.

On the lender side you completed the greatest number of deals this week with Barclays totalling 11 for £3,274,765 of lending.

Protection – Week 20

Things are definitely on the up over on the protection side of the business as you completed 31 deals this week led by superstar Sophie Evans with 13, Nick Price with 11 and Claire Hutchinson secured the highest policy amount of £580,999 with Zurich Assurance.

On the provider side you completed the greatest number of deals this week with Royal London totalling 7.

Birthday’s and other Parish Notices

We would like to wish the following a very Happy Birthday:

Keiron Pugsley and Kerry Railton will both be celebrating on the 1st June, Leighann Sawyer on the 4th and Rebecca Bailey on the 6th.

Club Notices For Members

1. It was good to see last week that many of you took time off after what's been a manic few months.

⚒️ Berberry 's No 3 for example jetted off to Spain with six suitcases of golf apparel. Pictured above , the Gaffer remarked that this fetching piccie of the golfers put him in mind of a famous Little Britain character ??? 🤔😝

2. Talking of Little Britain, there's no doubt that our thankfully self-governing & sovereign island would be smaller if the Scots voted to leave! 💔

But the Gaffer reckons that they should be careful what they wish for, but that (as with Brexit, and unlike in countries such as Russia) democratic protocols & outcomes should always be respected ... ???

In any event, MF 's incredible expansion goes on apace and last week saw the opening of the new office, shortly to be hopefully occupied by yet another 4 Scotties.

We love ' em ....

Finally, you may recall that the Gaffer promised to send you the Top Ten league tables last week but he however got waylaid on his travels but tells me that he will be doing them at the weekend so these will come directly from him before Monday.

There are some incredible figures on these tables and Kevin knows that lots of you were expressing concern about whether the fizz was going out of the property market.

He will however confirm in his note that we do not believe that this is the case. We may have the most despicable Prime Minister in memory right now and barring Rishi Sunak , the most incompetent Cabinet team ever but we certainly don’t see anything remotely near a property crash occurring (and this is validated by discussions with lenders etc) .

But we do envisage a slight cooling in Quarter 4 of this year and the first 2 Quarters of next year as a result of the inflation/cost of living influences.

The key point is that the fundamentals that drive the property market are still very much in your favour i.e.

1 ) Employment across the country has never been higher at circa 30 million people (despite the cataclysmic predictions of the remain brigade back in 2016!)

2 ) Interest rates are still at a historically low level despite the recent increases

3 ) The lenders have much stronger balance sheets now than they did in 2008/9/10 and there is plenty of capital available with mortgage assets very much in demand right across the globe.

4 ) The sheer demand for property (either owner occupier or buy to let) still comfortably outstrips supply of stock.

In a nutshell we are probably just going to have a 9 to 12 month correction which in itself is no bad thing because without these periodic adjustments , bubbles inflate and ultimately cause panic and market dysfunctionality.

Just to quick note to finish on that Martin Keene will be taking a well deserved couple of days off next week although there will still be a commission run.

Have a good weekend all and in the words of Jimmy Two-Times from the film Goodfellas – “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers”…