Ipswich Building Society is updating its mortgage range with new offers featuring fixed, discount and shared ownership deals.
The society is also promising a fair assessment of affordability to all mortgage applicants, even those considered a risk like self-builders, older generations and the self-employed. Such borrowers often have problems when applying for a mortgage as lenders have tightened affordability rules after the changes to the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) last April.
Ipswich is including all new products in a recently-launched lending programme, which has been designed to deal with “transitional” cases. Such cases are dealt with under the new MMR “transitional arrangements” clause. While many lenders offer deals to transitional borrowers among their own clients, they rarely handle cases of customers from another lender. Ipswich’s programme is focused on helping transitional borrowers looking to switch their lender.
The society’s new offers include:
*A two-year fix at 3.09 per cent, up to 90 per cent loan-to-value (LTV) (5.2 per cent annual percentage rate (APR)). Available for purchase and remortgage.
* A four-year fixed rate at 3.69 per cent, up to 90 per cent LTV (5.0 per cent APR). Available for purchase and remortgage.
*A two-year mortgage at a fixed rate of 4.59 per cent, up to 95 per cent LTV (5.5 per cent APR)
*A two-year discount rate, currently 2.49 per cent, up to 90 per cent LTV (5.1 per cent APR)
*A shared ownership product, fixed at 4.99 per cent (5.6 per cent APR) for two years at up to 95% LTV purchase of the share.
*A two-year self-build discounted product, currently at 4.99 per cent, for purchases up to 75% LTV (5.7 per cent APR).
“We’re back in the market with a confident and competitive set of products designed to offer choice to home-buyers of all shapes and sizes, including mortgage misfits who don’t always comply with the norm.
“This new product range follows a successful period of introducing a major IT upgrade which meant that we had to divert resources away from selling and into managing the project and maintaining our high levels of customer service,” Paul Winter, chief executive of Ipswich, commented.
