Key dates to be aware of this year….
Keystone Property Finance have released a list of key dates coming up in 2021. These may be relevant to brokers and their landlord clients as keeping up to date on industry changes can be challenging, particularly within the current market…
March
- Budget and possible CGT revisions and changes
- End of Mortgage Payment Defferals
April
- Stamp Duty changes
- BTL Taxation changes
- Deadline for Electrical compliance
June
- Right to rent – Tenant’s immigration status
No Fixed Date
- Deadline for landlords to implement making tax digital
If you have any questions or need any assistance with your case enquiries Keystone’s Business Development Managers are here to help, call the broker hotline on 0345 148 9086 or email enquiry@keystonepropertyfinance.co.uk.
Masthaven launches simple, streamlined bridging range
Masthaven Bank has launched a new bridging range designed to make short-term finance simple, streamlined and built to meet the diverse needs of today’s customer.
The specialist lender’s four bridging products – Bridging, Specialist Bridging, Refurbishment and Mini Bridge – are built to cover everything from classic bridging cases to those a little harder to fit.
Bridging
- The go-to for straightforward bridging cases
- Loans between £300k – £4m
Specialist Bridging
- For your complex cases
- Loans between £300,000 – £4m
Refurbishment
- For refurbishment and heavy refurbishment projects
- Loans from £300,000
Mini Bridg
- Perfect for your simple, smaller cases
- Loans between £200,000 – £300,000
Find all the details in the new product guide
The new range is now available in Masthaven’s Broker Portal where you can get quick quotes, automated DiPs, apply online and enjoy 24/7 access. Not yet joined? Get online today.
Want to offer your customers forward-thinking short-term lending? Register with Masthaven today.
How to buy in 2021: What you need to know…
News of lockdown light at the end of the tunnel and still rumours of an extension of the Stamp Duty holiday, many clients may be considering investing in a new or additional property.
Do they know how or even where to start?
Download and send direct
Subscribe now to get this free download, market information, client-ready guides and other exclusive content to help you keep your customers.
Need help sending? Drop us a line…
Mortgage Brain Round-up
Virtual Mortgage Vision Masterclasses
Between March 01st and 25th, the intermediary event of the year Mortgage Vision is returning with a series of eight free-to-attend masterclasses focusing on key industry topics including adverse credit, navigating ever-changing policies and criteria, self-employed insights amongst many others.
You’re invited to join one or all the 45-minute masterclasses to engage in thought-provoking presentations from a variety of industry leaders including HSBC UK, Mortgage Brain, Pepper Money to name a few. Best of all, you can gain up to 0.5 hours CPD by attending each session.
Lendex, a free and easy to use online mortgage submission platform
Fast, free, and easy to use, Lendex allows brokers to digitally complete, submit, administer, and track applications while maintaining a compliant audit trail. Advisers can transact with several major lenders on the system including Nationwide Building Society, Platform, Virgin Money, and Coventry Building Society, with more to follow.
Why Lendex?
- Access to multiple lenders, all from a single login
- Submissions sent directly into lenders’ systems
- No rekeying necessary for resubmissions
- Compliant audit trail with full case tracking
- Use as a standalone platform, or through integration with MortgageBrain Anywhere or The Key to benefit from pre-populated information
Don’t be limited by limited company lending
Did you know that an estimated 41,700 new buy to let limited companies were formed in 2020? That’s a 23% increase on the number established the year before.*
With this potential demand, at Kent Reliance for Intermediaries we’re here to support you wherever possible, so we’ve put together a list of limited company FAQs, covering everything from our solicitor panel to our fee structures.
See the questions here, alternatively why not contact your Business Development Manager to discuss further?
*https://www.hamptons.co.uk/research/articles/2102-record-number-of-buy-to-let-incorporations/
Supporting you and your customers at this challenging time
Their Existing Business Agent Hub (EBAH) in OLPC keeps you informed when your clients miss payments or ask to cancel their policy. By quickly receiving this information, you have the opportunity to get in touch with them. You can understand from them the reasons behind the missed payment, remind them of the importance of the cover they have, discuss any potential changes in their circumstances and reassure your clients.
A powerful tool to help retain your customers
Please make sure the details they hold for you are correct by checking and updating your contact preferences in Agent Hub (OLPC) and ensure the Lapse Notification box is ticked.
- You will only receive an email when there are new policies at risk
- Emails will now be sent up to 3 times per week when there are policies at risk
- You can quote, apply and service your clients’ policies all in one place
- Information of any communications we’ve issued to the customer will remain on EBAH for 12 months
- You access your clients’ policy information 24/7 available on EBAH
How it’s helped
In 2018 we saw how powerful timely notifications on the agent hub could be, when our Hero in the Middle winner (Neil Bohen) contacted his client who had decided to cancel her policy. Just months after taking it, her reason for cancelling was because, “at the time money was tight”. Neil’s actions opened up a conversation, allowing them to work together to find the right policy within budget. This ended up being a very valuable and helpful action for the client’s future, as she was later diagnosed with cancer. She shared that the pay out on her policy made a big difference for her.
In 2020 these real time notifications on EBAH have helped advisers in retaining 40,643 policies and £14,821,874 in commission. We hope the agent hub will continue to help support your business in 2021, so you can advise your clients in these uncertain times during the Pandemic, a time when clients may be experiencing a variety of difficulties.
7 simple marketing tips to generate more leads
By: Caroline Mirakian, Head of National Accounts at Pepper Money
Leads are the fuel that drive the growth of any mortgage advice business and new leads can be generated in many ways. Whatever method you use to generate your leads, hare are seven simple marketing steps that you can take to increase your lead generation and boost your business.
- Professional mortgage website
The first thing to do is make sure your website presents a positive representation of your business and the services you offer. Your website is, after all, your shop window and will be the first thing that many potential new customers will see. A professional looking website doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. It can be easily created and hosted using one of the many website building services for a relatively low monthly fee.
- Customer permissions
Give yourself the permissions to market to existing and prospective customers. In your terms of engagement with new customers, ensure you capture marketing permissions in a GDPR compliant manner. On your website, include the functionality for visitors to register to receive more information. This is usually available as part of the off-the-shelf website packages.
- Email communications for repeat business
Don’t wait until a deal ends to contact your customers. Use an email marketing tool to send regular emails to customers and leads who have registered an interest on your website, with information on the latest market conditions or new product innovations. This will help you to stay front of mind, demonstrate your market knowledge, and may initiate new enquiries if someone was, say, looking to invest in a Buy to Let property or raise funds for home improvements. Many online email marketing tools have free versions to try and offer low monthly subscriptions.
- Raise your profile on social media
Twitter and LinkedIn are currently popular channels for mortgage brokers to raise their profile. Start by being a voyeur – seeing what other people are talking about. As you get more confident about how you want to portray your business, share relevant news stories and articles, and then start to add some commentary to demonstrate your knowledge. As a rule, when it comes to posting on social media, consider whether you would be happy for what you say to be printed in a newspaper. If the answer is no, maybe delete the post, but if it’s yes, give it a go.
- Help your community
There are lots of ways of increasing leads through digital activity, but don’t forget more traditional methods. Think about sponsoring a local sports team, or community event. If you can become known as a business that contributes positively to the local community, you will generate good will and that will product leads.
- Online reviews bring customer experiences to life
Happy customers are the best form of marketing, so don’t forget to encourage online reviews and think about ways you can incentivise customers to refer their friends and families.
- Expand your expertise
One way of generating more leads is by offering a more holistic service. Think about areas you may not cover currently, such as second charge mortgages for example, and look at ways of delivering those to your customers to complement your existing advice offering.
For more useful tips and articles, visit Pepper Money’s Knowledge Centre.
Buy to Let product changes: explaining new criteria
See their latest Buy to Let products and rates.
by Gene Clohessy, Director of Mortgage Underwriting
As well as refreshing their rates, LTVs and max loan sizes in Lendinvest’s February Buy to Let product update; they have also used this opportunity to further expand our criteria to offer more of your clients more ways to Buy to Let.
Take a look at some of the main changes they’ve introduced to Lendinvest’s Buy to Let range, and download their full criteria guide or call your local BDM to get started on finding your client the right Buy to Let.
More people can now Buy to Let
A lot of the changes have been to expand the groups of people they will support with Buy to Let loans.
Lendinvest have raised the maximum age for the end of term at the end of the loan term for directors and shareholders to 95. The max LTV for first-time landlords has been raised to 75% and to purchase a HMO landlords need only demonstrate two other Buy to Lets in their portfolio, with one held for at least 12 months.
Larger HMOs now supported
Your clients can now mortgage HMOs up to 15 rooms if they have 12 months experience managing a similar size property.
Case studies: Buy to Let lending for HMOs
More properties
You can now mortgage up to 25 properties with LendInvest, with an aggregate borrowing of £5 million. Individual loan limits will apply to up to £3m of aggregate loan exposure to them.
Higher LTVs on HMOs and MUFBs
For small HMOs (up to 6 rooms), you can now get LTVs up to 80%. Similarly for large HMOs the max LTV has been increased to 75% at a max loan of £1,000,000. Your clients can also get up to 75% LTV on MUFBs, with a max loan of £1,500,000.
T is for Top Slicing Tips from Zephyr
They know how tricky Top Slicing can be, but Zephyr are here to help. Their experts are on hand to answer any of your questions to support you and your BTL clients. Here are some tops tips, explaining the types of top slicing, what they are and how they work:
Personal income backed is where the applicant can use excess personal income to supplement rental shortfall:
- At least one applicant must be earning £50,000 per annum or more;
- An Income & Expenditure form must be completed;
- Any monthly income surplus can be used to supplement the rental shortfall.
Portfolio income backed is where the applicant can use excess income from any properties coming to or currently held with Zephyr Homeloans to supplement rental shortfall:
- The aggregate ICR across all mortgages held with Zephyr Homeloans must be 155% using the product rates;
- Any income from a property with an ICR higher than 140% can be used to supplement any property with a rental shortfall.
Remember, they may allow a mix of personal and portfolio income to support rental shortfalls
Want to know more? Check out our Top Slicing support guide
NEW product range!
They’ve just launched their new product range, featuring reduced rates across the majority of products in both Zephyr’s Standard and Specialist range, plus they’ve introduced a NEW 1% fee product option to give you more choice for your BTL clients. With such competitive rates and broad criteria, there’s never been a better time to get in touch with Zephyr.
Find your local BDM here
Or call 0370 707 1894 – Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.
How has Covid-19 impacted the rental sector? Foundation Home Loans latest data
Covid-19 has changed the financial landscape for businesses and individuals across the country. All sectors of the mortgage market have been forced to modify their approaches during this period and it’s important to understand the effects of the pandemic, learn from them, adjust accordingly and move forward.
In terms of the impact on the BTL sector, this was outlined in the recent Q4 2020 Landlord Panel research from BVA BDRC. This highlighted that whilst the coronavirus pandemic will inevitably affect many landlords in some shape or form, confidence appears to be growing. In the Q4 data, 39% of landlords reported that Covid-19 related issues have affected their rental portfolio, down from a figure of 46% in Q3.
Get the latest expert data from Foundation Home loans direct to your inbox – register here
This overall decline in Covid-related issues is suggested to be driven by slight falls in those impacted by reduced rental income (-3%pts) and in those experiencing void periods (-4%pts). Larger landlords continue to have the greatest exposure to Covid related property issues; six in 10 landlords with 20+ properties have seen an impact on rental income as a result of the pandemic, with around three in 10 experiencing an increase in void periods.
Breaking this down, landlords with the largest portfolios continue to be hardest hit with 57% of those with 20+ properties reporting a fall in income due to the pandemic (although this is down from 66% in Q3). Leveraged landlords also remain more impacted than their unencumbered peers, with around half of those with BTL borrowing seeing income reduce vs. 36% of those who don’t borrow.
Challenges remain for many landlords but, as we’ve seen from the volume of purchase business in recent months, large numbers are still looking to add to their portfolios. And looking forward, opportunities will continue to present themselves and the value of the advice process is only set to rise further.
Knowledge Bank and Iress team up to provide ground-breaking integrated product and criteria search
Knowledge Bank and Iress have collaborated to provide the UK’s very first, fully integrated product and criteria sourcing system. Through a single search, brokers will be able to find the exact lender to suit their clients’ needs from both a product and criteria perspective, saving time and effort.
Knowledge Bank, the UK’s largest mortgage criteria search system, teamed up with market leading product sourcing system, Iress, back in April 2020 to provide a level of integration, but today’s move takes this to a whole new level. This trailblazing collaboration between the two independent companies brings together the best of breed with regards to both product and criteria. It creates the ultimate sourcing tool for brokers to get the best possible outcomes for their clients.
For the first time, brokers using Iress’ Xplan Mortgage software, will be able, via a single login, to input their client’s requirements only once and the system will display results detailing the lenders who will accept the client based on both the products available and the criteria circumstances. This is dramatically different to other systems where you still need either separate logins, or to conduct searches on two separate parts of the system.
The products available are only a part of the information a broker requires when looking for the best outcome to suit their client needs. The product sourcing results alone will not tell you whether a lender will accept a client due to their criteria circumstances. For example, the property type, or even the client’s employment or financial history. This revolutionary integration changes this, by incorporating the lenders criteria stance into the product sourcing results, immediately shortlisting a more accurate selection of lenders.
This complements Iress’ ‘Lender Connect’ proposition which enables brokers to then apply from Xplan Mortgage directly to the lender, with all of the data pre-populated, eradicating the need to ever enter the client’s details more than once.
Andrew Simon, Executive General Manager of Product at Iress said: “There’s no doubt criteria searching has become more complex. As a result, criteria searching without using Knowledge Bank is often time consuming and impractical, making it difficult for brokers to be certain that they are giving their client best advice. This integration continues our commitment to making our customers’ lives easier and lets them spend more time focusing on providing advice, rather than on checking lending criteria.”
Nicola Firth, CEO of Knowledge Bank said: “The result of this collaboration is a system that will revolutionise the market. It is no longer a viable option to search only for mortgage products and not criteria, not with over 52,000 criteria changes in 2020 alone – that’s 1000 changes to criteria every single week. So by teaming up with Iress we have ensured that brokers can get both the most accurate and up-to-date product and criteria information all in one place.
“Never again will it be necessary for brokers to log into multiple different systems, spending hours cross-referencing and rekeying client data, to find which lender will provide a mortgage for their client. This can now be done in moments, pulling all of the information into one place and providing robust evidence of research for compliance purposes satisfying the FCA’s requirements.
The need for a collaboration such as this has never been greater. Knowledge Bank holds over 125,000 pieces of lending criteria for over 250 lenders across eight different product areas from residential and buy-to-let to bridging and commercial.
For further details, please contact:
Debbie Staveley, CEO of bClear Communications on: 0771 896 8434 or Debbie.staveley@bclear.co.uk
About Iress
Iress (IRE.ASX) is a technology company providing software to the financial services industry.
We provide software and services for trading & market data, financial advice, investment management, mortgages, superannuation, life & pensions, and data intelligence.
Our software is used by more than 9,000 businesses and 500,000 users globally. We have over 2,000 people based in Asia-Pacific, North America, Africa, the UK, and Europe. www.iress.com
About Knowledge Bank
The Knowledge Bank criteria activity tracker is unique in that it reveals brokers’ activity in trying to meet the loan aspirations of their clients. The data produced by Knowledge Bank shows the cases brokers are trying to place and so offers a unique viewpoint on demand as well as supply. As the largest mortgage criteria search system in the UK, Knowledge Bank holds over 125,000 criteria from over 250 lenders.
Knowledge Bank is the largest database of mortgage lending criteria held anywhere in the UK. Live from June 2016 and launched in September 2017 by independent company Compass Systems, it enables intermediaries to search lenders’ mortgage criteria in seconds. It contains the criteria of over 250 lenders and multiple search criteria can be entered at one time.
Knowledge Bank contains over 125,000 criteria across seven different lending types including residential, buy-to-let, equity release, self-build, second charges, bridging, and commercial mortgages. It also provides a clear audit trail with results that can be saved electronically as a pdf or printed out with a name, time, and date stamp.
Designed by a mortgage broker and incredibly simple to use, Knowledge Bank revolutionises the UK mortgage market by freeing up time for intermediaries to spend with their clients, meaning more time is spent on advice and less on searching.
New Scam Awareness Events from Santander: Did you know that fraud and scams cost people in the UK £10.9 billion a year?
This engaging 30 minute virtual event will help you spot the signs of common scams, so you know what to look out for and stay safe.
What we’ll cover in the session
- The most common types of scams and look at some real-life examples.
- How much data people reveal through being online and how you can do this in a safe way.
- Practical tips on how you can keep yourself and your information safe.
This is a virtual event – all you’ll need is an internet connection
We’ll be holding this event using Zoom, so you can join from the comfort of your own home.
Don’t worry if you haven’t joined a virtual event before – we’ll send you everything you need to get ready for it, and an email reminder when it’s time to start.
Find out more and register your place here.
