With the summer months behind us, kids back at school, holiday escapes over and the nights starting to noticeably draw in, you might be forgiven for feeling a little glum.
However, what a lot there has been to be positive about in September.
I’ve seen a much more competitive market emerge post-summer. Lenders have been making rate reductions in droves, inflation has stabilised around the 2% mark, house prices are relatively buoyant and there are indications of a further base rate reduction on the horizon.
This has all led to a more active buy-to-let market with more opportunities for mortgage advisers.
With the changes made by lenders directly impacting this building momentum, let’s take our usual look around some of the announcements made this month, starting with a couple of green initiatives.
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A wider offering of green buy-to-let deals
Santander launched a range of green remortgage products for both homeowners and landlords where the property has an EPC rating of A or B. The buy-to-let products are available as two- or five-year fixes between 60% and 75% loan to value (LTV).
The rates are 10bps lower than the equivalent standard remortgage rates and start at 3.97% for a five-year fixed up to 60% LTV with a £1,749 product fee.
Fleet Mortgages has reintroduced its range of products for those landlords looking to purchase or refinance properties that have an EPC rating of A–C. These new five-year fixed rates are available at 75% LTV with a 3% fee in Fleet’s standard, limited company and HMO/MUFB ranges.
Prices are 10bps less than non-A–C properties: 4.69% in the standard and limited company ranges and 5.09% for a house in multiple occupation(HMO) or multi-unit freehold block (MUFB).
This change comes on top of a number of rate reductions by the lender in recent weeks.
Rate and criteria changes
Family Building Society launched a UK landlord buy-to-let five-year fixed product for purchases and remortgages. Priced from 4.59%, key features now include a maximum LTV of 65% (previously 60%), a minimum loan value of £45,000 (previously £100,000) and a maximum loan value of £750,000 (previously £600,000). There is no application or product fee and landlords can benefit from a free valuation up to £500,000 and discounted thereafter.
Remortgage applications benefit from £500 cashback.
Paragon has announced the addition of £750 cashback for its five-year fixed products. The offer includes all of the lender’s existing 5% and zero fee fixed rate products as well as the new 3% fee option products now available.
For example, landlords with an HMO/MUFB can apply for a five-year fixed at 5.39% up to 75% LTV with a 3% product fee, free mortgage valuation, £299 application fee and £750 cashback.
A buy-to-let range refresh by Interbay this month has resulted in a simplified fee structure of either 2% or 5% to provide an easier choice for landlords. Reductions have also been announced of up to 1.2%, meaning that prices now start from 5.19% for cases placed through an Interbay Select packager.
The refresh of the range also lets loans of 5m+ be POA (priced on application) further simplifying the process. Other features of the range include a max LTV of 75%, two- and five-year fixed options and a minimum loan starting from £500,000.
It’s been great to see lenders continuing to make sweeping rate reductions – a small selection of recent ones follow.
The Mortgage Works announced reductions to selected rates across its new business product range of up to 0.35%. Reduced rates include a buy-to-let five-year fixed rate of 3.69% available for purchase or remortgage up to 65% LTV with a 3% fee. A two-year fixed option is available at a new price of 3.99% up to 65% LTV with a fixed fee of £3,995.
Zephyr Homeloans has made reductions to its buy-to-let fixed rate products. Two-year fixed rates have been reduced by 0.20% meaning that they now start from 3.24%.
Five-year fixed rates were reduced by 0.29% with prices now starting from 4.30%. Both of these starting prices are for a 65% LTV product with a 7% fee in its EPC A–C range.
LendInvest has made reductions of up to 20bps across its entire buy-to-let product range. Their range now starts from 3.44% and features £350 cashback and products up to 80% LTV. First-time landlords are accepted as well as large HMOs and MUFBs.
Foundation Home Loans has made significant rate reductions of up to 0.50% across its buy-to-let core product range, along with a fee reduction of £2,000 on its F2 HMO limited edition product. The reductions mean that two- and five-year fixed rates in F1 and F2 ranges now start from 5.29% with a 1.5% fee up to 80% LTV.
Leeds Building Society has addressed the need for more support for brokers regarding limited company lending. The lender is hoping to increase intermediaries’ confidence in this growing area by providing an enhanced underwriting service, a dedicated solicitor panel with full coverage across England, Wales and Scotland, support from its network of BDMs plus a packaging checklist, affordability calculator, bespoke application system and improved interest cover ratio and stress rate.
And finally, in a criteria update, specialist lender Lendco has made positive changes to support a broader range of landlords. The maximum loan per asset has been increased to £5m and the lender will now accept portfolio exposures of up to £20m.
First-time landlords are now eligible for loans secured against HMO and MUFBs of up to £2m. As part of the update, Lendco has also made updates to its criteria for new builds, flats above commercial and ex-local authority properties.
By my next round-up we’ll be days away from the budget, so let’s all keep our fingers well and truly crossed.
