Buy-to-let specialist lender Fleet Mortgages has extended the maximum age for borrowers at the end of the mortgage term to 85 years.
Previously, the lender accepted applications only if the borrowers would be 75 at the end of the term.
Fleet has also extended all its end dates till 31 July.
Along with this change of criteria, Fleet Mortgages launched a rate reduction across its product range.
The new offers include:
- 4.09 per cent for a five-year fixed rate at 75 per cent loan-to-value (LTV) and 1 per cent completion fee.
- 3.95 per cent for a three-year tracker at 80 per cent LTV (LIBOR plus 3.39 per cent) and 2 per cent completion fee.
- 3.99 per cent for a two-year fixed rate at 80 per cent LTV and 2 per cent completion fee.
- 4.79 per cent two-year fixed rate offering, available up to 80 per cent LTV and completion fee of 1.5 per cent. All completion fees across the entire range can be added to the loan.
Commenting on the changes Bob Young, chief executive of Fleet Mortgages, said:
“We continually review our product range to make sure all products are as competitive as they can be and that they provide a range of options to both our intermediary partners and their clients. Our rate changes make these standard buy-to-let products for individual landlords even more attractive on price and we believe they will be welcomed by advisers. We would also urge all advisers to look at our products for both limited companies and HMOs as these are incredibly competitive in today’s market.
“Fleet Mortgages is also committed to evolving and enhancing our criteria in order to ensure it is fit for purpose in a changing marketplace – this why we have increased our maximum customer age, at the end of loan, up from 75 to 85 years old. We recognise, for instance, that people are living longer, that landlords want to hold their properties longer into retirement plus there is a growing appetite amongst people over 50 wanting to invest in property. Since launch, close to 50% of all our applications are from borrowers over 50.
“We suspect that with the newly-introduced pension freedoms there will be a small, but perhaps growing, number of retirees who wish to use money from their pension pot to purchase a buy-to-let investment. It’s therefore important that our criteria reflectthese changes and uniformly unambiguous which will make life easier for all our stakeholders, particularly brokers and their clients.”
