Specialist lender Together has increased its maximum loan amount to £250,000 on Right to Buy and other residential lending to reflect property inflation.
The changes take effect this week, which also offers short-term finance, auction finance and secured loans.
Sales director Gary Bailey said the lender decided to offer higher loan amounts as it was already doing so and as the average house price is now over £200,000.
The lender which rebranded from Blemain Finance to Together in September last year has also removed the maximum age limit on its consumer buy-to-let mortgages, where rental income covers 120% of total secured lending repayments.
This follows the removal of the upper age limit on the lender’s first charge buy-to-let products last month.
Bailey said: “We’ve already removed the age limit on our buy-to-let range so were keen to apply this to consumer buy-to-let mortgages as well. The UK has an ageing population, with 11.4m people aged 65 and over, and according to the latest official projections this is expected to grow by 12% by 2020, so lenders are looking closely at age limits across different products.”
Together is willing to accept an estate agent’s or rental agent’s rental projection if 90% of the rental projection covers 120% of the total secured lending repayments.
Additional income including employed, self-employed, contract and pension income is also considered by referral with a full affordability assessment.
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.