Rise in Intermediary Mortgage Products Signals a Stabalising Market

Further news that the market may be stabilising has come from Mortgage Brain, one of the main sourcing systems available to intermediaries. Their figures showed a 4% increase in the number of live mortgage schemes available in July in comparison to May, and up from significant drops in previous months.

In comparison to the 50,000 or so different product combinations available to intermediaries in the past, the real number of mortgage products still remains at an all time, with a total of approximately 2,500 live mortgage schemes listed by Mortgage Brain.

The highest increase in available mortgage products has been seen with fixed rate mortgages, which increased by eight per cent. This was followed by Variable rates at six per cent. The continuing uncertainty of likely base rate movements has seen Tracker rate mortgage products decline even further, with Mortgage Brain seeing a nine per cent drop in as many months.

The number of mainstream lender products with a LTV of 80 per cent or more, for example, has increased to 15.1 per cent, up from 13.7 per cent a month ago.

Mark Lofthouse, CEO of Mortgage Brain, said: “It’s encouraging to see the number of products available to the intermediary channel stabilising, especially having seen them drop for two consecutive months.”

He added: “The recovery in the number of fixed rate products and the increase in the amount of higher banded LTV products is particularly encouraging and may be seen as an early indicator that confidence in the market is returning.”

This is highlighted by an announcement from Woolwich that they will be increasing the loan to value (LTV) on offset and tracker products from 60% to 70% and introducing a three-year fixed rate deal at 85% LTV.

From Friday August 7th Woolwich has announced that a lifetime tracker at Bank base rate plus 2.74% and an offset tracker at Bank base rate plus 2.99%, both with at 70% LTV and a £999 fee, will be available. In addition a range of fixed rate deals that will include a two year fixed rate at 4.29% at up to 70% LTV with a £999 fee and a three year fixed rate deal for purchases at 6.99%, 85% LTV and £999 fee will also be available.

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