One thing I keep hearing from our advisers is how much more work each case now generates, largely because so much of it involves requests from clients to review the market after an offer has already been secured.
That’s a genuine shift from a few years ago and it arguably traces back to the Liz Truss mini-budget and the rate volatility that followed in 2022.
Volume hasn’t shifted dramatically but the ongoing work attached to a single case certainly has.
Much of the conversation around AI in our industry still centres on productivity: doing the same work faster, with fewer people. That’s a reasonable starting point but it undersells what’s actually changing.
REVIEW AND REASSURANCE
Clients are understandably keen to secure a mortgage as quickly as possible in a market where rates continue to move around.
Increasingly, once they’ve secured a product, they’re asking us to keep reviewing the market before completion in case something better becomes available.
They’re not asking for anything unreasonable. They’re simply looking for reassurance that they’re making the right decision.
At the same time, our advisers are working closely with estate agents and housebuilders who are facing their own pressures.
“Sales are taking longer and transactions are harder to secure.”
Sales are taking longer and transactions are harder to secure and every committed buyer has become more important than ever.
That naturally creates more communication and collaboration, and often more work to find a solution for customers whose circumstances aren’t straightforward.
We’re seeing the same pattern at Heron: completions taking longer, and more touchpoints per case (us to lenders, agents, conveyancers), even on transactions that are otherwise straightforward.
CAPACITY CONSTRAINT
None of that suggests a market that’s stopped moving,but it does mean every successful transaction carries a little more weight for everyone involved.
Capacity is the constraint that keeps coming up in those conversations, and it’s broader than adviser numbers or appointment availability. It’s the amount of time people have to do work that genuinely adds value.
Every time information has to be entered twice, every time someone has to chase an update or manually pass information from one business to another, that capacity narrows a little further.
Most advisers are used to sitting between lenders, estate agents, conveyancers, developers and customers, passing information from one to the next.
We’ve almost accepted that as part of the role. My instinct is that it doesn’t need to stay this labour intensive.
“Interoperability isn’t a compelling subject in itself but the outcome could be.”
That’s part of why I’ve been keenly following the work of organisations such as the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology and the Open Property Data Association.
Interoperability isn’t a compelling subject in itself but the outcome could be.
If businesses can exchange trusted information consistently, advisers spend less time moving data between systems and more time on the judgement calls that actually require them.
I think this is where something like Model Context Protocols becomes particularly useful, not as another tool for drafting emails or summarising documents, but as infrastructure that lets different systems understand each other.
Once that foundation exists, AI stops being a set of point solutions bolted onto individual tasks and starts supporting the adviser across the whole case.
None of this removes the need for relationships.
Advisers still need to guide customers through decisions with real financial consequences, and estate agents and housebuilders still need confidence that cases are progressing (a point worth its own piece, not this one).
The next few years are less likely to be about replacing advisers than about who builds the plumbing that connects lenders, agents, conveyancers and customers.
That’s a harder problem to solve than automating individual tasks – and a less visible one – but it’s where I’d expect the value to accumulate over time.
