The mortgage market continues to evolve, and so too does the answer to the question: what is a high net worth individual in today’s market? In this episode of the Mortgage Insider podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Stephen Moroukian, Head of Product and Proposition for Real Estate Financing at Barclays Private Bank, and Islay Robinson, founder and CEO of Enness Global. Together, they explore what brokers really need to know when supporting high net worth individuals. The discussion covers t...
Jun 10, 2025•23 min•Season 6Ep. 6
An estimated 1.8 million fixed rate mortgage deals are due to expire in 2025, 400,000 more than in 2024. This surge in remortgaging presents a critical opportunity for mortgage brokers to offer essential advice and financial support to homeowners across the UK, ensuring they transition smoothly to new deals amid stabilising interest rates and heightened affordability checks. In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Karina Hutchins, Principal, Mortg...
May 13, 2025•18 min•Season 6Ep. 5
A recent report from Barclays revealed that right-sizing – when homeowners move to a more suitably sized property – could potentially free up 3.8 million homes and tackle the issue of 10 million unused bedrooms across the UK. By supporting last-time buyers to make the move and release equity, this shift could help in unlocking the housing market and creating greater levels of movement across the entire housing chain. In this episode of the Mortgage Insider podcast, host and property expert Phil ...
Apr 08, 2025•19 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Who are Gen Z, and why are they rewriting the financial advice rulebook? In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host and property expert Phil Spencer is joined by two industry thought leaders to explore how Gen Z navigates financial education through the digital world, their engagement with Finfluencers, and how brokers can use social media platforms to build trust and extend their reach to younger customers. Joining the conversation are Dr Erika Anderson, Research Associate a...
Mar 18, 2025•19 min•Season 6Ep. 3
For many first-time buyers, the homeownership dream feels increasingly out of reach, with rising house prices and affordability challenges making it harder than ever to step onto the property ladder. As a result, gifted deposits from family - often referred to as the ‘Bank of Mum & Dad’ - have become a crucial source of support. But what about those who don’t have parental help? From high LTV mortgages to Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor arrangements and Shared Ownership, there are a range of ...
Feb 18, 2025•19 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Ever wondered how Phil met Kirsty or what he really thinks about the UK housing market? In this special episode of the Mortgage Insider Podcast, Phil Spencer takes the hot seat as Barclays Business Development Manager Claire MacPhail flips the script and puts him under the spotlight. Phil tackles your burning questions from across the intermediary market, covering topics such as tips for first-time buyers, current property trends, the state of the buy-to-let sector and the great north/south divi...
Jan 21, 2025•19 min•Season 6Ep. 1
The Mortgage Mum is a business that has achieved impressive growth by embracing open dialogue, fostering an inclusive culture, leveraging flexible working, and adopting an innovative social media approach. In this episode of the Mortgage Insider Podcast, Sarah Tucker, founder and CEO of The Mortgage Mum, joins host and property expert Phil Spencer to share her inspiring journey from competing on The Voice to leading a thriving team of nearly 30 female brokers. She candidly reveals the realities ...
Dec 10, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 15
The performance of the UK housing market in 2024 has largely exceeded many people's expectations, although challenges remain for first-time buyers due to house prices increasing and a testing rental market for many. Regional disparities, such as the North-South divide, also continue to influence housing accessibility and affordability for many buyers in pockets of the country. In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Zoopla's Executive Director of ...
Nov 19, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Allyship is a vital component in advancing diversity and inclusion efforts, as it involves using our privilege to support underrepresented groups, including LGBTQ+ individuals and those within the neurodiversity spectrum. By actively participating in DEI initiatives and mentoring, allies help normalise conversations around representation while providing guidance and opportunities for marginalised communities. Creating a more equitable world where everyone can thrive through allyship is at the he...
Oct 15, 2024•22 min•Season 5Ep. 13
With a new Labour government in place, an autumn budget and the US election fast approaching, the old suspects of inflation and tax rises still generating much debate, there’s plenty to discuss from an economic standpoint. To help break down this complex economic landscape and explore its implications for the intermediary mortgage market, by popular demand, Will Hobbs, Head of Multi-Asset Wealth at Barclays UK Wealth Management, returns to share his insights, clarify key trends and offer expert ...
Sep 17, 2024•23 min•Season 5Ep. 12
During a cost of living crisis, the additional expense of life insurance, critical illness, income protection and even protecting a mortgage may seem like an unnecessary burden for homeowners. However, this protection is arguably more crucial than ever. According to ONS figures, 2.5 million people in the UK are unable to work due to long-term illness, and Cancer Research data indicates that half of us will develop some form of cancer in our lifetime. So, how can mortgage intermediaries help thei...
Aug 20, 2024•23 min•Season 5Ep. 11
Machine learning in finance, the adoption of AI and technology regulation are all hot topics in their own right. Then throw into the mix the potential of automated mortgage advice and what an AI mortgage broker may look like and it's little wonder that intermediary firms across the UK are considering how the role of a broker may change as the AI revolution continues to gather pace. So, what exactly does the mortgage intermediary market need to know about AI and how is it going to change the way ...
Jul 16, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 10
So, what are green mortgages? Green mortgages come in many different forms, but all aim to incentivise buyers in the purchase of energy efficient homes or make energy-related improvements. Through increased innovation and rising environmental awareness, green mortgage products are being launched at an ever-increasing rate to incorporate important factors such as decarbonisation, EPC ratings and retrofitting. With this in mind, the latest episode of the award-winning Barclays Mortgage Insider Pod...
Jun 18, 2024•15 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Mortgage brokers have long been experts in dealing with new challenges. Be this in the form of regulation, technology – especially AI –, a worldwide pandemic, rising interest rates and heightened cost of living pressures. That’s quite a list, but it still doesn’t cover a fraction of the questions being asked of them by their clients in the current financial climate. So, how can brokers adapt their businesses to deal with this ever-changing world? Will AI replace mortgage brokers? And how importa...
May 21, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 8
In recent times, there’s been much talk around the financial challenges facing the UK population. However, it’s important to remember that financial circumstances can also improve. Additional, and often unexpected, funds can come in differing forms such as inheritance, insurance payout(s) or even winning the lottery. With inheritance being the most likely scenario, and paying off a mortgage high on the financial planning agenda of many homeowners, this often leads to the question - should I use ...
Apr 16, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 7
The buy-to-let market has undergone some major challenges and changes in recent years, all of which have impacted landlords and property investors to varying degrees. Rental yield has long been a vital component within landlord calculations but another increasingly important consideration in recent times has been whether to set up a limited company. To incorporate or not to incorporate is one of the key talking points in the latest episode of Barclays award-winning Mortgage Insider Podcast. This...
Mar 19, 2024•21 min•Season 5Ep. 6
For almost 10 years, the Help to Buy scheme proved incredibly successful in helping over a quarter of a million borrowers across the UK to buy a home. But, with this scheme now having ended in England and Scotland, this leads to the question of what – if anything – can replace it. In the latest episode of Barclays Mortgage Insider podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Mobeen Akram, New Homes Director at the Mortgage Advice Bureau and Mitch Atkins, director at Michael Usher Mortgage Services as...
Feb 20, 2024•22 min•Season 5Ep. 5
The mortgage market is currently experiencing growing demand for long-term mortgages – otherwise known as marathon mortgages - with some lenders even offering up to 40-year terms to help attract more young buyers onto the property ladder. So, will marathon mortgages be THE 2024 trend for first-time buyers? Or, with mortgage rates falling, is it simply a passing phase? To answer these questions and more, James Tucker, CEO at Twenty7Tec and Lewis Shaw, owner of Shaw Financial Services join host an...
Jan 23, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 4
The past few years have seen the relentless rise of the Bank of England base rate dominate lending and borrowing decisions across the mortgage market. This significant uplift has led to an even more complicated picture around affordability, stress testing, the influence of mortgage swap rates and generated a flurry of future interest rate forecasts amid some lingering economic uncertainty. To add some clarity to these shifting market dynamics, the latest episode of Barclays Mortgage Insider Podc...
Dec 12, 2023•19 min•Season 5Ep. 3
The UK's housing market remains in a state of flux. Interest rates are at their highest level for 15 years, house prices are faltering, and the UK economy is still feeling the lingering aftermath of last year’s mini-budget. On a more positive note, following a period of swap rate turbulence, mortgage rates are slowly but steadily coming down, inflation is falling and we continue to see a very different regional picture, especially in and around the London housing market. This all leads to ongoin...
Nov 28, 2023•20 min•Season 5Ep. 2
The UK economy continues to dominate conversations across the country in the wake of the transition to a higher interest rate environment, rising cost of living pressures, an increased focus on unemployment figures and shifts in the labour market. In a bid to unpick the current economic position and help us understand what it all means for the intermediary mortgage market, the latest season of Barclays award-winning Mortgage Insider Podcast kicks off with host and property expert Phil Spencer be...
Nov 14, 2023•17 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Returning soon, a new series Mortgage Insider, Barclays' award-winning podcast for mortgage brokers. Hosted by TV presenter and property expert Phil Spencer, the new series will see leading industry experts, brokers and Barclays’ own team of experts continue to delve deep into the pressing issues that are shaping the mortgage and housing markets. The conversations will cover topics such as the performance of the UK economy, the intricate processes behind rate-setting and potential alternatives f...
Nov 07, 2023•1 min
Despite the need for financial advice growing exponentially in an increasingly complex economic landscape, many perceived barriers remain for all too many people across the UK. The final episode in Season 4 of Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast evaluates where these barriers appear, the progress being made by the mortgage industry to overcome them and what more brokers can be doing to make the advice they offer more inclusive, more accessible and easier to understand. Host and property expert Phi...
Jun 20, 2023•19 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Following on from episodes which have focused on why buying a house is so complicated and the changing role of the mortgage broker, the latest instalment in the award-winning Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast dusts off its crystal ball to predict the homebuying and selling journey of the future, what’s going on behind the scenes to make this happen and the future role of the mortgage broker. Host and property expert Phil Spencer is joined by Maria Harris, Chair of the Home Buying & Selling T...
Jun 13, 2023•21 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Following his appearances on Series 1, 2 and 3 of Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, William Hobbs, Chief Investment Officer at Barclays Wealth & Investments, is back by popular demand to help make sense of current economic conditions in his own inimitable style. Will joins regular host and property expert Phil Spencer to carefully plot his way through what remains a mixed economic picture. Within the podcast, he outlines the ramifications of recent economic shocks, the role played by the me...
Jun 06, 2023•23 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Evolving and adapting to meet ever-changing lending and borrowing needs is second nature to mortgage brokers. Which leads to the question - how are they doing business differently in 2023? In the latest episode of Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host and property expert Phil Spencer is joined by two mortgage brokers - Helen Pierson, director at Mortgage Advice Bureau, New Homes and Neil Ryner, director of Ryner and Partners - to discuss shifting client needs and the impact on the advice proce...
May 30, 2023•21 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Buying a house remains one of life’s most stressful events but is the methodology too onerous, lengthy and overly complex? This is the question, amongst many others, which was posed to representatives of three of the most prominent components in the homebuying process - the mortgage broker, the estate agent and the conveyancer. Episode 8 of Barclays award-winning Mortgage Insider podcast sees mortgage broker Tom Jackson, managing director at Cooper Associates, Peter May, sales director at estate...
May 23, 2023•23 min•Season 4Ep. 8
The UK mortgage market has always generated a huge variety of ways to help people achieve their homeownership goals and, despite operating in a higher interest rate and inflationary environment which is placing additional pressure on affordability, an array of mortgage products remain available to meet individual borrowing needs. In the latest episode of Barclays Mortgage Insider podcast, regular host and property expert Phil Spencer chats with Rebekah Commane, Group Editor of Mortgage Strategy ...
May 16, 2023•19 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Mortgage brokers have always been on hand to support and deliver solutions for a variety of borrowers on what remains one of the largest and most emotive financial decisions they are ever likely to make. But how has the mortgage advice process changed following a string of events which have put personal and household finances under even greater scrutiny and resulted in an increasingly complex housing and mortgage market? Host and property expert Phil Spencer speaks to Andrew Montlake, managing d...
May 09, 2023•23 min•Season 4Ep. 6
With awareness rising over the environmental and cost implications generated by greater levels of energy efficiency within our homes, it’s little wonder that potential buyers are exploring the benefits of purchasing a new build property. In Episode 5 of Barclays award-winning Mortgage Insider podcast, Matt Aston, Head of New Build at Barclays and James Holmear, Group Sales Director at Redrow join host and property expert Phil Spencer to gauge the temperature of the new build sector. They evaluat...
May 02, 2023•21 min•Season 4Ep. 5
