Just an update Monday 23rd October
This week's headlines:
Gen H are added to our lender panel. Gen H is a fintech residential lender driven by the ethos that buying a home should be an opportunity for everyone. Through tech-led innovation, they’re working to make the homebuying process simple, transparent and fair. They’ve created new ways to help your clients find their place on the property ladder.
Gen H offers traditional mortgage products for clients looking to buy or remortgage their residential property in England and Wales. In addition, Gen H have created innovative features to help clients boost their affordability, get deposit support, and buy with larger groups.
Gen H mortgages are suitable for: Clients who need to increase their affordability Gen H’s income booster feature can help boost affordability for clients who are unable to borrow enough on their income alone. Immediate family members – parents, grandparents, siblings, children, aunts, uncles, and step family – can be added to the mortgage as boosters. Income boosters can contribute to the monthly payments and build up an equity stake in the home, or just stay on standby. As boosters go on the mortgage but not the property deed, first-time buyer stamp duty status won’t be impacted. Gen H will accept up to 6 borrowers on the mortgage application with all 6 incomes used to assess affordability. And the age of the client’s booster doesn’t need to limit the term of their mortgage. Gen H can even provide longer terms than other Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor (JBSP) lenders by automatically removing the booster before they turn 85, as long as the remaining loan is affordable. It’s like a JBSP mortgage but better – and with no max age limit.
Clients lacking savings for a deposit If clients need help with their deposit, they can add a deposit booster to their application. Deposit boosters – friends or family – can contribute up to 100% of the deposit on the home. Deposit boosters can gift this money or contribute an interest-free or equity loan to ensure their money comes back to them down the line. This can help parents support more than one child with the same pot of money. Gen H also provides the legal agreement and manages the loan repayments free of charge.
Clients looking to friends and family for support on their mortgage Gen H’s dynamic ownership is a version of owning a property as tenants-incommon where each borrower has an allocated equity stake. The solution is suitable for clients looking to purchase where equity stakes need to be allocated differently and provides the option to keep contributions separate and secure. With their Gen H dashboard, clients can track who owns how much equity over time or change their monthly payment splits whenever they like. This solution is ideal for couples who might want to keep their finances separate or friends buying together.
Find out more on their website
How to get the service you need quickly L&G are delighted to share a new interactive service one pager. L&G want to make it simple and easy for you to protect your clients. From OLP Connect to their Existing Business Agent Hub, their systems are designed to help you get clients on risk quicker, prevent lapses, and protect more clients. This is a fantastic tool and covers all aspects of L&G’s systems in real bite size chunks and you should find this really useful, whatever you need to find out.
Vitality issues their Life Claims and Benefits Report 2023 Using statistics from their latest Life Claims and Benefits report, Chief Operations and Growth Officer at Vitality, Greg Levine, joined COVER in their studios to explore why protection needs to evolve in line with the changing needs of people today. Vitality’s latest report shows that in 2022 they paid: • £60m in Life Cover claims (99.7% of claims paid) • £35.5m in Serious Illness Cover claims (92.5% of claims paid) • £800,000 in Income Protection claims (97.7% of claims paid) In 2022 Vitality members: • Completed over 500,000 health assessments • Visited the gym 3.76m times • Walked 797bn steps. Read the full report here
Accord Mortgages makes contractor income and Buy to Let LTV changes Accord Mortgages has enhanced its contractor income criteria for: • Day Rate contractors • Fixed term contractors • Self-employed Locums To find out more click here and search ‘contractors’. Accord has also increased its maximum LTV to 75% on New Build flats for Buy to Let applications – find out more
Rated for Service – have your say on lender service Openwork have teamed up with Mortgage Finance Gazette and Mortgage Strategy to launch the Rated for Service Awards 2024. The Awards recognise and commend lenders that have performed exceptionally well for brokers, providing lenders with an annual benchmark for service. The inaugural survey last year was completed by over 800 mortgage advisers and provided detailed feedback to help us work in partnership with the lenders to find and drive home improvements in service levels. Understanding your priorities, recognising service excellence, and identifying opportunities for improving standards is important. The second survey window is now open and gives you a great opportunity to assess lenders’ levels of service and recognise great performance. The MFG Rated for Service Awards provide an important barometer of your experience, enabling lenders to improve service levels which will ultimately help you deliver better client outcomes. Take the survey
Find out how top slicing could help your landlord customers Top slicing could provide greater flexibility for your landlord clients. Here’s an example from Precise Mortgages of how its top slicing could help. Top slicing allows landlords to: • Achieve greater flexibility around loan size • Maximise their investment opportunity • Choose from a wider range of products Your client is looking to purchase a property on the market for £300,000 to add to their Buy to Let portfolio. Looking at similar properties in the area they’re expecting to achieve gross rental income of £1,400 pcm. With the current market volatility, your customer doesn’t want to be tied in for a long period and ideally wants the flexibility offered with a short-term fixed rate. Precise Mortgages’ limited edition 4.69% 2-year fixed rate with a 5% product fee, affordability is assessed at 6.24%, meaning with the ICR alone the maximum loan achievable is £183,126, well short of the amount needed.
Precise Mortgages assess 5-year fixed at pay rate, but even then its limited edition 5.24% fixed rate returns a maximum loan of £214,002, still short of what they need. However, your customer has no mortgage on their main residence and earns £3,500 from salaried income as well as attracting £8,500 from portfolio income. Having checked affordability, Precise Mortgages can see they have around £350 disposable income each month and can now apply top slicing, allowing them to achieve the full £225,000 loan size needed on the cheaper 2-year fixed rate. Here are a few top slicing top tips from Precise Mortgages. The property must meet a minimum ICR of 110% • No minimum income requirement for loans under £1m • Portfolio landlords accepted and can use their surplus rental income • Available for new purchases only Speak with your business development manager if you have any questions, or call Precise Mortgages’ dedicated support team on 0800 116 4385.