Mortgage News, Insights & Advice
All the latest UK mortgage news, insights and advice from the world of mortgage lending and Oportfolio
NatWest International Mortgages Changes Criteria For UAE Residents
In a recent update to its lending policies, NatWest International, the international lending arm of NatWest bank, has announced the lifting of previous restrictions on mortgage applications from clients residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Effective...
UK Buy-To-Let Funding Through Mortgages Has Taken A Downturn
The latest quarterly report from UK Finance sheds light on the challenging landscape of the buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage market in the final quarter of 2023. Revealing a notable downturn in new lending and heightened financial pressures on landlords, the report...
Zoopla Housing Market Flourishes in Q1 2024
After what felt like a rather tumultuous period for many homeowners and potential buyers, the UK housing market has shown remarkable resilience, with significant improvements seen across the board in the first quarter of 2024, according to Zoopla's latest House Price...
Accord Lowers Minimum Income For Higher Mortgages
Accord mortgages have announced that they will be making it easier for people to borrow more than 4.49X their income as a mortgage. The standard borrowing amount for most people looking to get a residential mortgage is between 4X and 4.5X income, with lenders offering...
Over 700,000 Missed Mortgage And Rent Payments
As the tight grip of the UK's current economic crisis takes hold, millions are starting to notice that their money isn't getting them as far as it once did. The price of energy bills has increased significantly, costing homeowners and renters thousands more per year....
Buy-To-Let Affordability Assessment Changes
Buy-to-let affordability assessment stress tests and calculations have got extremely strict in comparison to where they were last year. Lenders have had to restrict their generosity with affordability assessments and increase their requirements at affordability stage...
New 100% Mortgage From Skipton
Building society Skipton have sensationally announced that they are launching a new 100% mortgage product, that means that potential borrowers can get a mortgage for 100% of the value of a property, without having to contribute any deposit themselves! This is a very...
Holiday Let Mortgage Criteria
What Are Holiday Let Mortgages? It might seem like a fairly obvious answer, but it is definitely worth getting the basics down before we get into the real meat of holiday buy-to-let mortgage loans! A holiday let mortgage is a mortgage that allows you to rent out a...
Mortgage Approval Rate Jumped Up In March
Data released recently by the Bank of England has shown that mortgage approval rate in the UK has jumped significantly in the period from March to April 2023. A good sign that stability will return to the property market, if it hasn't already. The Bank of England, the...
Over Half of Landlords Increased Rent This Year
Landlords have it easy, right? Buy a house, rent it out to someone, collect the money and sit back on your golden throne. Well that simply isn't true at all. And for 99% of people with rental properties, keeping a profitable rental property has become extremely...
Mortgage Rate Rises Arrive Before Next BoE Meeting
The Bank of England's next monetary policy committee meeting is scheduled to take place on the 11th of May however, it seems that lots of lenders are already jumping the gun and introducing mortgage rate rises across their product offerings. Some lenders are also...
UK House Prices Improve In April 2023
The housing market in the UK, especially places like London and the Southwest has always given off the impression of being very strong. Idyllic city based property and beautiful rural home bases seem to get snapped up for above average asking prices, and people are...
Latest Mortgage Lender Changes
This week, and specifically in the last couple of days, we have seen a lot of mortgage lender changes being announced. Changes around mortgage interest rate increases, mortgage interest rate decreases, product withdrawals, product introductions, and changes to lender...
Rising Interest Rates Encouraging 40 Year Terms
In recent times, we have noticed that there has been a significant shift in the market in terms of the length of time that people are taking a mortgage for. It used to be the case that a 25 or perhaps 30 year mortgage term was a standard number of years for someone to...
How To Find Your Dream Home As Easily As Possible
The property market is a strange beast at the moment, that is no secret. Things are more complicated than they once were when searching for that dream home. Mortgages were pretty chaotic for a few months at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 and are still...
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