Nationwide hit the headlines this month after announcing that clients who are remortgaging their current residential property as a buy to let with TMW, can now apply for their onward residential mortgage with Nationwide, as long as they use a broker.
As part of the new joint proposition, Nationwide is also giving clients £250 cashback when they complete their onward Nationwide residential mortgage, in addition to a free valuation which comes as standard on all TMW let to buy products.
Foundation Home Loans also got the industry talking by announcing it will now accept applications from first-time landlords. As most brokers will know, and indeed Foundation Home Loans’ business development director Paul Brett stated when announcing the plans, this is a massively under developed area and, as such, this bold move from the new lender has been widely welcomed by the industry.
Foundation Home Loans has worked hard to get itself noticed since launching earlier this year and it has done so by making forward-thinking decisions about its criteria and its proposition. As I have said on many occasions, this is a very competitive market (which is fantastic of course) and as a result, as a new lender, making your mark can be tough. Foundation Home Loans has made some very interesting moves of late and I’m eager to see what it does next.
Elsewhere, Santander continued to improve its buy-to-let range at 75% LTV with the launch of a new tracker. Back in April it was reported that the lender had plans to lend £20bn worth of mortgages through the broker market in 2015 with head of intermediary distribution Paul Adams stating that buy-to-let would play a significant part in that. It’s great to see Santander’s commitment to the brokers and buy to let.
Finally, also fiddling with their criteria were Clydesdale and Kent Reliance with the former removing all products above 60% LTV and then reversing its stance, and the latter rewording all policies on rental calculation and contractors criteria.
Ying Tan is managing director of the Buy to Let Club (part of The Buy to Let Business)
