No surprise last week that the base rate was put on hold – in fact it passed with little comment.

I had been invited this week to a mortgage strategy summit with the top players within the mortgage industry (to my surprise). It was a bit like the G20 summit but for mortgage brokers, and it has given me a fantastic insight into the current state of the market from both a lender’s and broker’s perspective.

If I can summarise 2 days into 30 seconds, then I would as follows:

• Don’t expect any new lenders coming into the market for the next 2 to 3 years.
• Loan to values will not increase until the market stabilises.
• General consensus is that property values will bottom out within the next few months
• Once properties have stabilised lending criteria should ease.

I’m not sure there were any particular surprises within this list. However the overall mood was that the worst had been avoided and it would be a steady climb back up the hill.