At last! We are starting to see some action from some of the bigger buy to let lenders.

At the weekend we had some product updates from BM Solutions and Bank of Scotland which have seen their rates reduce, (although nothing like the 1.5% drop in base rates.) This bodes well for the future -expectations are that the base rate will fall further so for new purchases it should make things easier from a rental point of view. 

Credit scoring is still an issue and is one of the major strategies lenders are using to control their volume of lending. It really is the case that if you want to buy regularly you need to have other people who you can buy with, so should you be turned down from a lender then you can switch to a partner (business or otherwise) and still secure the property. 

Other news: the 85% deal which was struck last week has now been changed due to unprecedented demand (rental criteria is now 125% @ 7% – that will slow the business down for them!). If the rental does fit though, this is still a great 85% tracker at 6%.

I was struck by the number of brokers (or clients on behalf of their brokers) calling me asking for details. Sometimes this does cause problems as when we do agree a true exclusive with a lender other brokers break a leg, so to speak, to find out who the lender is and then bombard them with calls to find out if they can have access to it. This generally doesn’t go down that well and can have a negative effect on everyone – for our next negotiated exclusive we may initially reserve for our existing clients.

And finally…

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but even I was surprised when one of our clients forwarded an email newsletter he’d received from another mortgage brokerage. It was a word-for-word cut and paste of one of our newsletters (apart from the name and contact details, he wasn’t that silly). We of course rang him to see if he was indeed telepathic or had he actually just copied our newsletter and couldn’t be bothered to write his own. Having spoken to his director who promised me this wouldn’t happen again, I’m hoping he’s now stopped. So David, if you’re out there, please write your own newsletters!