BestAdvice fires the questions at Rob Oliver, distribution director at Dudley Building Society.
BestAdvice (BA): For any brokers unfamiliar with Dudley Building Society, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Rob Oliver (RO): We are a Building Society with a specialist lender focus on complex cases, including expats, holiday lets, people with complex income circumstances, the self-employed, and self-build borrowers. We also offer mortgages to borrowers who are already in retirement or who require mortgage terms that extend into retirement.
We have been lending to UK customers for over 160 years, but we consider ourselves to take a modern approach to our mortgage lending through our flexible and innovative products. We call it “Sharp with a Heart”.
BA: How can building societies compete with larger banks in today’s mortgage market?
RO: Sometimes, being smaller has its advantages. For example, our size allows us to manually underwrite every mortgage case, enabling a much more personal approach where we thoroughly consider the pros and cons of each case individually. We believe this approach enables us to approve cases that some other, perhaps larger lenders might not, especially on the more complex side, it’s about making common sense lending decisions.
While we may be a local building society based in the West Midlands, we have assisted expats from all corners of the globe. Our expat cases often present interesting scenarios as we consider applicants residing in almost any country and earning in almost any currency. Recently we completed a case for an expat based in Dubai, paid in Dirhams, purchasing a holiday let in the UK at 80% LTV.
BA: How would you say Dudley has changed in recent years?
RO: Over the last 12 months in particular, we’ve been working tirelessly to improve our service, and we were thrilled when this was recognised in the recent Smart Money People’s Lender Benchmark Study, which highlighted positive feedback from brokers.
The survey showed brokers felt we had improved our service in almost all of the key areas in the second half of 2023 compared to the previous six months, which is great news – we recognise this as an ongoing endeavour however.
Like many other lenders, Dudley has had to make tough decisions over the years, including temporarily pulling back from the mortgage market to manage our service in 2022. This was definitely not an easy choice. While we’ve received tremendous support from the broker community, there are also brokers who can have long memories, and rebuilding their trust is a top priority for us as we prepare for increased mortgage growth this year.
We’re focused on getting the message out there that Dudley has evolved – and we invite brokers to experience it for themselves. We are definitely open for business now!
BA: What product areas do you think will be in most demand this year?
RO: We’ve seen a very busy start to the year so far and we expect demand across the board to continue.
Borrowers’ circumstances are changing, we have borrowers who are working past retirement age, some through choice and some through need. JBSP has been popular, particularly due to the costs involved getting onto the property ladder, something that we are comfortable with.
We also continue to see borrowers who feel they are underserved by some high-street lenders, particularly the self-employed and those with complex income sources.
We know that some borrowers feel like it is an uphill battle to get a mortgage if you are self-employed or have multiple incomes. With around 15% of the UK population now working for themselves, we recognise the importance of helping such borrowers.
We also continue to see investors looking for ways to get the best returns from property, whether this be through purchasing holiday lets or building their own property.
Self-build is an exciting area, as well as being a much-needed and important part of the market given the current shortage of properties.
While not every property might be of a ‘Grand Designs’ scale, it’s always rewarding to see borrowers progress along their self-build journey. It’s also an area that requires specialist knowledge, especially when it comes to fully understanding all the different stages of the project.
BA: What are Dudley’s plans for the year ahead?
RO: Over the past 12 months, we’ve undergone a complete restructuring of both our external and internal intermediary & underwriting teams, expanding our workforce, and implementing changes to lending policy and change processes to help improve our service.
We have also made a number of new appointments that will support our expansion efforts and allow us to extend support to as many brokers as possible. We recently added two new key account managers, Sarah Rose and Cavina Harrison, to cover the North and South of England, along with recruiting two new underwriters in December with 2 more underwriters due to join us in May.
Last year, we also appointed Andrew Turvey as our new chief risk officer. He is leading the development of our mortgage lending policy to ensure it remains responsive to market changes and offers more lending solutions to intermediaries and their customers.
It promises to be an exciting year ahead.