This was followed by self-employed applicants with just one year’s accounts and Help to Buy equity loan scheme.
April is the third time in the past four months that Help to Buy has appeared in the top five and it looks set to continue.
Within buy-to-let mortgages, lending to limited companies and first-time landlords were the most searched terms. Requirement to be a homeowner, minimum income and first-time buyers also broke into the top five broker search terms.
Lending in Wales among top five criteria searches for the first time
Within equity release, taking the top spot for the first time was the search for lenders who offer medically enhanced lifetime mortgages.
Lenders offering mortgages on properties in Wales appeared in the top five criteria searches for the first time, followed by those who offer a no negative equity guarantee.
Maximum LTV
Maximum loan to value (LTV) broke into the top five broker search terms within the second charge, bridging, self-build, overseas and commercial sectors.
The self-build sector continues the regional aspect to the April results with lending in Scotland the most searched for criteria in this category.
In the bridging sector, searches for ‘second charge loans’ made a first appearance in the top five, while ‘regulated bridging’ remained at the top for the sixth month out of the eleven the tracker has been running.
Minimum loan to value featured in the top five of both the bridging and commercial categories.
Nicola Firth, CEO of Knowledge Bank (pictured), said: “It is so frustrating for brokers to approach a lender on behalf of their customer thinking that they will be accepted on a product to find that they fall outside of criteria.
“Equity release is a good example of this; as the sector grows brokers are constantly having to search for different criteria including, as we’ve seen, where lenders will lend. With the scale and frequency of criteria changes in the market it is simply impossible for brokers to keep pace without a system to support them.
“It is also interesting to note the continuing popularity of the Help to Buy scheme and whether this will be affected now the first batch of recipients of this scheme start coming to the end of their five-year grace period and start to repay the loan to the government.
“There has already been some publicity over the extent and reaction to a possible payment shock for borrowers and so I will be curious to see if brokers continue to seek out these loans with the same vigour.”
