Shawbrook Bank’s Broker Barometer measured commercial and residential sentiment and discovered that 47% of brokers were confident about the post-Brexit UK economy.

In total, 55% of commercial and 50% of residential brokers are confident about their business growth for 2017.

Only 35% of commercial brokers and 26% of residential brokers believe the EU referendum has had a negative impact on the lending environment, while even fewer were concerned about its effect on clients – 27% of commercial and 25% of residential brokers.

It was found that lending restrictions were the biggest challenge facing commercial brokers’ businesses (28%) followed by the post-Brexit economic climate (24%).

A similar sentiment was polled by residential brokers with 19% stating they were concerned about lending restrictions and 17% about post-Brexit conditions.

•   2017 will be exciting for us all
•   Shawbrook warns brokers of BTL underwriting changes
•   Shawbrook to cut specialist BTL and commercial rates

Karen Bennett, managing director of commercial mortgages at Shawbrook, said: “After the uncertainties faced in 2016, it is encouraging to see that brokers’ confidence is strong as we enter 2017.

“It is revealing that, within the property finance division, commercial and residential brokers have varying levels of confidence in the lending environment for 2017 (72% and 59% respectively are confident in the lending environment), reinforcing that commercial and residential brokers face different key influences.”

Maeve Ward, managing director of residential mortgages at Shawbrook, added: “In terms of the key differences, one of the concerns raised by residential mortgage brokers is around lead generation, which I believe is the result of a lack of customer awareness of products such as second charge mortgages.

“As with our colleagues from commercial mortgages, I’m delighted that residential mortgage brokers see client demand growing in 2017, which gives me great assurance that brokers are putting customer awareness firmly on their radars in order to fuel this demand.”