Exclusive: Keystone Property Finance adds PTs with additional borrowing

The PT Plus range mirrors the rates offered in Keystone Property Finance’s existing product transfer range, with two- and five-year fixed rates available.

The maximum loan to value (LTV) is 80% and offers arrangement fees of 1.5% and 3.5%.

The size of the further advance is determined by an affordability assessment, with individual and limited company applications acceptable.

Applications must be submitted through a broker, and a procuration fee of 0.55% on the total borrowing is applied.

A physical valuation will be required for all applications, but the cost will be borne by the lender as opposed to the borrower.

For borrowers undergoing a limited company application, independent legal advice must be sought. However, the lender offers through this ILA Law for £175+ VAT per director or independently.

Speaking to this publication, Elise Coole (pictured), managing director of Keystone Property Finance, said that the lender had had a product transfer offering out in the market for a few years and that take-up of this offering was growing, as many of its borrowers were on five-year fixed rates that were coming up for reversion.

“From broker feedback and internal discussions, we said to ourselves we’ve got existing relationships with those customers, we know they’re good customers, and what can we offer to support them and facilitate them?

“Many of these customers will have benefitted from both house price increases and rental increases over the last five years, and for some, a pound-for-pound internal remortgage/straight product transfer is the right solution, but actually for a lot of others, they would want to extract and obtain additional borrowing,” she explained.

She continued on to say that the only way for them to do this previously was to remortgage to another lender or remortgage with Keystone Property Finance and “go through the whole new business application process”.

“What we’ve got now is a hassle-free, very streamlined process. There are no additional documents, no admin fee and a free valuation, which is organised by Keystone, offered on products is up to 80% LTV on standard products 75% LTV on specialist products. There are also two- and five-year fixed rate terms available, and we pay a really competitive procuration fee of 55 basis point[s],” Coole said.

Product transfer with additional borrowing ‘can appeal to anybody’

Coole said that the product “can appeal to anybody”, whether a landlord has a small or large portfolio of properties.

“They can look at their individual properties, and they might find that one may have benefitted more from house price and rental increase than another, so if they’ve got multiple loans coming up, they might select to do a straightforward product transfer on one or a PT Plus on another and get that additional borrowing, but it gives them the choice.

“I think that’s what’s important is we’re giving them a choice. You don’t need to go on a high reversion rate, you don’t need to remortgage elsewhere where it’s going to cost you lots of additional fees and you’re going to have to provide lots of documents. We’ve got that streamlined process, because we know you and we value that relationship.

“Where you’ve got landlords who might be looking to make further property investments and increase the size of their portfolio, this is really beneficial for them because they can increase their borrowing without having to pay out lots of additional fees.”

Keystone has ‘good relationships’ with funding partners

Coole said that Keystone has “really good relationships with our funding partners” and one of its funding partners is capital market-backed.

“We’ve worked really closely with [funders] to come up with a product that works for customers, brokers, funders, and the securitisation market. People have said that capital markets-funded or securitisation-funded lenders cannot offer a product transfer, but we’ve shown them that that is possible.

“We work so hard on maintaining strong relationships in in all directions, be that with brokers, understanding that their clients are essential and what’s important to them, but also having strong relationships with our funders, and understanding their drivers means that we can we never feel constrained by our funding methods, we always come up with the best product.”

Coole said that the lender’s current product transfer offering was popular and had a high take-up rate.

“I think this is only going to be a positive addition and will further take-up. We’ve got a reduced arrangement fee on it versus new business cases, and it’s such a simple process I think it’s going to have a high take-up from our borrowers.

“I think it’s also one of those things that brokers will take into consideration when looking to place new business cases, as at the end of the fixed rate period, a customer can do a straightforward product transfer or get additional borrowing.

“The customer knows that they’re going to be looked after and the broker knows that they’re going to get a really competitive procuration fee.”