Mortgage News, Insights & Advice
All the latest UK mortgage news, insights and advice from the world of mortgage lending and Oportfolio
Halifax To Release Mortgages Without Early Repayment Charges
Halifax bank, one of the UK's biggest and most well known mortgage lenders will be releasing some new mortgage products over the next few days, most significantly perhaps, they will be releasing mortgages without early repayment charges. Not only does this mean that...
Where Is The Best Place To Buy Property?
Last week, senior mortgage and protection advisor at Oportfolio Mortgages, Jade Pinkerton attended the latest Coutts and Savills market update webinar. Many interesting property related discussions were held. Perhaps the most interesting and thought provoking...
Buy-to-Let Investment: Is It Still A Good Idea?
This week, senior mortgage and protection advisor at Oportfolio Mortgages Jade Pinkerton attended the latest Coutts Bank and Savills Market Update webinar. One hot topic of discussion was the UK buy-to-let market, and whether it was still ‘worth it’. In this blog, I...
How much does it cost to live NEAR London?
The office on national statistics (ONS) have recently released a report that claims that a town’s proximity to London is one of the top 3 factors that affect a property’s value. The data presented by the ONS and recorded in 2019 found that towns within 200km of London...
Natwest Announce a 40 Year Mortgage Term
Fantastic news coming out of NatWest Intermediary Solutions as they announce a significant improvement to their mortgage lending criteria – an increase to both the maximum term allowed and age allowed. What's new? Effective immediately, mortgages submitted via an...
Shared ownership mortgages are back with The West Brom
Who are The West Brom? West Midlands based building society The West Brom has announced that they are vetoing their ban on shared ownership mortgages. The 173 year old building society, which was once known as a good new build shared ownership specialist, dropped out...
Self-employed income requirements change for Santander
Mortgage lending juggernaut Santander have today announced that from the 11th of April they will be introducing new self-employed mortgage income requirements. We all know that when it comes to self-employed income, it is never a straightforward affair. Salaries,...
Loan to income caps are increasing for big lenders
Both Halifax and Scottish Widows have announced today that there will be a dramatic shake up with their loan to income rules from Wednesday the 6th of April. Both lenders will be increasing their loan to income affordability from 4.49X to 4.75X income meaning that...
Santander increases rates across its products
Over the last couple of days Santander has announced that it has increased its rates on most residential and buy to let products meaning that repayments will go up for thousands of people. Some of the rate changes are as follows…
Client takes on an ambitious 2nd property purchase plan
Our client found his dream property after an extensive search. He already owned a residential property and wanted to keep this as a 2nd home however this was unaffordable to do due to the expense of having two properties.
Landlord is shocked when credit checks decline
A regular client of Oportfolio and experienced landlord came back to us to look at remortgaging some of her rental properties to avoid going on to the standard variable rate and also to release some needed equity. We carried out a decision in principle which should have passed no problem however this unexpectedly declined. We then approached another lender but this decision in principle also declined unexpectedly.
Lending shortfall and visa status leaves buyers stuck
Our clients were purchasing a new residential property and needed quite a large mortgage loan. They had been to some mortgage lenders on their own but were struggling to find a lender who would be willing to lend enough to purchase the new property. Their residency status was also causing issues as they were non-UK nationals without settled status.
Cancer and Life Insurance Case Study
Our client’s mother had breast cancer in the past and she wanted to make sure that she was covered in case she too developed cancer. A straight forward life insurance application turned out to be quite difficult as the majority of insurance companies excluded cancer meaning that they would not cover a potential future cancer diagnosis for the clients.
Equity Release Is Popular With Pensioners
If recent events have taught us anything it is that jobs, income, and cashflow aren’t always as straight forward and secure as we might think. Sometimes, no amount of planning can prepare you for unexpected events and now more than ever, it is difficult to know how to make sure that you are financially secure when the economy is so uncertain.
Decline in Help To Buy applications evident
Since 2013 the government in conjunction with house builders has offered the Help to Buy scheme which was developed with the intention of helping struggling prospective home buyers to fund the purchase of a new build property. Initially the scheme was set to run until 2020 but was slightly restructured and extended until 2023. The scheme was an instant hit and people flocked in their thousands to make the most of a really incredible helping hand.
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