Bluestone Mortgages to relaunch at 85 per cent LTV within eight weeks – video exclusive

After lending volumes hit 90 per cent year-on-year, Seal said the lender nudged its rates up to manage inflow and “try to take the heat out of some of the original volumes coming through”.

“Perversely this had the opposite effect and after we increased our interest rates, we saw higher volumes than the weeks before. From our perspective, we didn’t want to allow that situation to continue,” he added.

In a One to One with MD, Bluestone Mortgages Seal explained the lender had instituted its cap at 75 per cent loan to value (LTV) in early June, because it was “passionate about service”.

A different take on service

Seal also suggested case by case metrics to assess lender service levels were useful but that measuring the end-to end journey might be more valuable from a broker perspective.

“Regardless of how long it might take for one element of the process, if the overall app to offer period was market-leading, would it matter if one element was perhaps a little elongated?”

He added: “What we want to do is be very clear about every element, but also publish more robustly and transparently overall application time to offer and averages so we can be very clear about how long it will take overall to reach that offer point.”

For more on Bluestone’s flexible lending policy on the self-employed and strategic plans for the year, watch the rest of the one to one below.