Mortgage roundup – broker support, holiday lets and...

This week, Introducer Today takes a look at the latest mortgage news, from Aldermore’s expansion to support more brokers, to Roma Finance’s enhanced criteria for its bridging and development ranges.

Aldermore expands UK-wide broker support

Aldermore Bank has announced an expansion to its residential mortgage Business Development Manager (BDM) working structure.

The Bank aims to boost its broker services and business experience to a wider range of clients.

The improvements include:

Increasing the number of telephony BDMs by 60%
Reorganising its ten sales regions to three, with each region now having a larger dedicated team of telephony BDMs available boosting our coverage across all areas
Brokers will now have a BDM team to handle cases so, if in the event a BDM is on another call or on leave, the broker can get an immediate response from someone else on the team. This will reduce phone waiting times and will result in a more seamless process, with fewer delays in getting cases handled.

Recently, its telephony-based BDMs worked across 10 sales regions, but the new model is now focused on three new areas: North (Scotland, Northern England and Yorkshire, and North Wales), Central (The Midlands, South Wales and East Anglia), and South (London, South West and South East).

Each region will have a larger dedicated team of telephony BDMs available with a local and regional focus. Aldermore says this will have positive impacts of ‘widening the service each broker receives’ and ensuring it can support them in their key market areas across the UK more efficiently.

Jon Cooper, head of mortgage distribution at Aldermore, comments: “We’re delighted to announce our expanded and improved BDM service, which will be a game-changer in how we serve our broker partners across the UK.”

“The new and improved operating shape means we can spread our case workload over a greater pool of talent. This will help to prevent blockages while investing in developing our staff and giving our BDMs more time to support brokers with complex cases.”

He concludes: “2022 promises to be a busy year for the housing market and the broker community. We’ve listened to our broker partners on how we can improve to better serve them. We believe this will create a better experience, provide a faster, more responsive process, which enables us to support the growing complex needs of brokers and their clients going forward.”

Hodge increases holiday let rental yield LTV to 30 weeks occupancy

Hodge will now accept 30 weeks occupancy as a rental yield projection for its holiday let mortgages.

Previously, the bank allowed calculated rental income using an average of projected low, medium and high season weekly rental yield based on 26 weeks occupancy, but has now increased this by four weeks to 30.

Hodge has done this in reaction to the buoyant market, as well as the increasing rental yields across the sector.

Emma Graham, business development director for Hodge, says: “Here at Hodge, we constantly talk to our broker colleagues and ask them how we can improve our products. They suggested a few things. We listened and now this new 30-week occupancy calculation change is being made.”

Hodge’s success has been underpinned by a 173% increase in applications in 2020. Graham believes this change in the criteria will help more people get on the holiday let mortgage ladder and offer more accommodation to the UK holiday market.

“Another advantage of our holiday let mortgage is that we remain one of the only lenders who will allow customers to use websites such as Airbnb to let their properties,” she adds.

“We believe this, and our flexible criteria and bespoke customer service has really made us stand out of the holiday let mortgage crowd. We will continue to provide this service to our brokers and their customers in the coming years.”

The change is proving popular with brokers. Joe Stallard of House and Holiday Home Mortgages commented: “It’s fantastic to see Hodge moving back to a 30-week occupancy calculation with their holiday let proposition. This demonstrates confidence in this area of the market and will enhance their offering for clients.”

Hodge customers can borrow up to £1.5 million with a maximum lending age of 95. The lender also has its unique Hodge Early Repayment Promise, which means if the customer sells their home and pays off their mortgage completely, any Early Repayment Charges are waived.

For more information on Hodge’s holiday let products, click here.

Accord alters buy-to-let range

Accord Mortgages has made changes to its buy-to-let mortgage range.

As of Friday February 4, the range was withdrawn and replaced to include larger cuts.

The intermediary-only lender’s recently launched ERC-free five-year fixed rate products have seen the biggest cuts, with the 80% LTV rate reducing 0.50% to 3.49% (was 3.99%), and the 75% LTV rate reducing 0.39% to 2.54% (was 2.93%).

Fixed rate products in its 60% LTV range have been increased by up to 0.30%, 65% LTV by up to 0.29% and 75% LTV by up to 0.35%.

Simon Garner, buy-to-let mortgage manager at Accord, states: “As a result of changing market conditions, we’ve let brokers know about some changes we’re making.”

“Rates have been increased across the lower LTV ranges, but we’ve been able to reduce some of the ERC-free products to give brokers and their landlord clients better value when choosing a fixed-term product that allows penalty-free flexibility, should they need it.”

Roma cuts rates across bridging and development ranges

Lender Roma Finance has slashed rates and enhanced criteria across its product ranges.

The product ranges have been simplified. Rates for standard residential bridging and auction have been reduced and now start from 0.59% per month with no exit fee on loans from £75,000 to £3 million and a maximum LTV of 75%.

Light, medium and heavy refurbishment product rates have also been reduced. The light refurbishment product, where the cost of works is between 20% and 50% of the current market value now starts from 0.79%.

Meanwhile, semi-commercial bridging rates now start from 0.89% and commercial from 1.00%, both with no exit.

Following the recent announcement that Roma and British Business Investments have agreed a funding partnership to support housebuilders across the country, the development finance range has also been simplified.

For ground-up developments, rates now start from just 0.89% with terms available up to 24 months. The developer exit product, which allows developers to move off their development finance to a less expensive bridge once a site is wind and watertight, remains in place. Roma is also now offering a commercial development product with rates starting from 1.00%.

Steve Smith, sales director at Roma Finance, says: “With new and sustainable funding lines in place and a massive increase in business, particularly over the last six months, now is the time to change up another gear.

“Our recent #RomaFLOW process has been highly successful, reducing completion times and we have expanded the underwriting and processing teams to ensure we can cope with higher business levels. These new lower rates will further stimulate our business in a focused and strategic way, and we will continue to deliver a lending less ordinary service to our introducers and customers.”