Chair of the lender panel, Rob Jupp, CEO at Brightstar Financial, straw polled the roomful of brokers at The Mere asking ‘Should interest-only mortgages be reintroduced for first-time buyers?’ and none of the delegates voted against.

At the Specialist Lending Solutions Event, during a debate on first-time buyers, Matthew Wyles, executive director at Castle Trust, also agreed reintroducing the products could assist these buyers, adding that buyers can be Capital Gains Tax exempt if they don’t pay off the capital.

“We’ve also got to build more homes for our children at affordable prices and do everything we can to make sure they can get the finance in place to buy as well,” he said.

Following the debate, Jupp said: “We had a number of questions that we asked for audience feedback and this, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the one that absolutely every broker in the room felt the same about. Clearly, affordability remains the number one factor on why many would be first time buyers don’t buy.”

Prompted by a delegate question, Louisa Sedgwick also said she suspected 2017 would see more high street lenders launching into the 95% loan to value (LTV) new-build market.

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The panel, which included Gary Bailey, sales director at Together, Simon Bayley commercial director at Foundation Home Loans, Louisa Sedgwick, director of sales, Vida Homeloans and Wyles from Castle Trust all agreed Britain needed to ‘get building again’.

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