According to Skipton Building Society’s latest financial results, it has supported around 40 per cent more first-time buyers, with 19,120 first-time buyers getting onto the property ladder in the last year.
This is equal to one in three of all loans advanced, the lender said.
The firm’s group mortgage balances rose to £28.6bn, equivalent to a market share of 13 per cent.
The mutual said that this was despite the mortgage market being “stagnant for the majority of the year”.
Skipton Building Society added that residential mortgages in arrears of three months or more stayed low at 0.23 per cent at the end of the year. This compares to 0.17 per cent in 2022, but is below the industry average.
An additional £30.9bn of lending has been generated by Connells for UK mortgage providers in 2023, which is down from £36.9bn in 2022.
The company’s underlying group profit rose to £308.6m, an increase from £297.7m in 2022.
Its net interest margin (NIM) rose to 1.53 per cent from 1.35 per cent in 2022, which it attributed to the “rising-interest-rate environment, which created opportunities to generate higher net income that we are reinvesting to deliver further benefits for members”.
Track record mortgage reports nearly £30m in completions
Skipton Building Society said that the value of its track record mortgage, which aims to help people trapped in rental cycles get onto the property ladder with a deposit-free mortgage that includes rental history, has been “clearly demonstrated”.
It said that applications had totalled £62.4m since it launched in May and there had been around £29.7m in completions.
The company added that, since it expanded its criteria to previous homeowners, it was helping more renters onto the property ladder.
Connells’ revenue pegged at £950.9m
Connells’ revenue for 2023 came to £950.9m, which is a drop of 7.7 per cent compared to the same year last year.
The company said that this was due to a “tougher economic environment” during the period and weaker consumer confidence in the housing market going into the year, which led to a “materially lower sales pipeline”.
The group secured a profit before tax of £13.8m, down from £67.5m in 2022.
Connells said that it supported one in 10 individuals looking to buy and sell homes in the UK, with the number of properties the group exchanged contracts on coming to 70,971. This compares to 87,395 in 2022.
The number of mortgages arranged by the group fell by seven per cent during the period, and the number of properties in its lettings business rose to 125,666 from 122,614 in 2022.
Skipton International’s mortgage book hits £2.2bn
Skipton International, which carries out mortgage lending to the Channel Islands and for overseas UK buy-to-let (BTL) investors or those using special-purpose vehicles, reported a 9.6 per cent growth in its mortgage book to £2.2bn.
The firm said that its mortgage book quality remained good, with only four cases in arrears of three months or more. This is up from no cases in 2022.
The company said that pre-tax profits came to £47.3m in 2022, up from £39.9m in 2022, which it said was due to the “benefits to income and margin from the rising-interest-rate environment”.
Skipton International’s NIM rose to 2.37 per cent from 2.2 per cent in the prior year.
‘We are committed to continuing to keep pushing for change in the housing sector’
Charlotte Harrison (pictured), CEO of home financing at Skipton, said that the “strong results” were a “true reflection of the hard work, dedication, and the lengths we have gone to at Skipton to help bring real change to the housing market and the mortgage sector as a whole”.
She continued: “In February 2023, I stepped up to become the CEO of the home financing business and, just one year later, I’m extremely proud of what we have already delivered as a business to help support homeowners and first-time buyers.
“From bold product innovation, delivering the UK’s only deposit-free mortgage – Skipton’s track record – providing a much-needed lifeline to tenants stuck renting, enabling them to achieve their homeownership aspirations, through to not passing on the majority of base rate increases to our mortgage variable rate (MVR) and standard variable rate (SVR) customers, ensuring we maintain as a lender one of the lowest MVR/SVRs on the market.”
She added that renaming products, like joint borrower sole proprietor (JBSP) to income booster, would “help more first-time buyers better understand the options that are available to them on the market”.
Harrison said: “However, there is more we can still do, as there are too many people in the UK who desperately feel that they will never have a home of their own – we want to change this.
“Which is why, in the home financing business, we are committed to continuing to keep pushing for change in the housing sector – we’ll continue to hold ourselves accountable and be braver and bolder in our approach to deliver more innovation and take action where it is needed to support more homeowners and help even more people to take their first steps onto the property ladder.”
