The Mortgage Lender Benchmark gathered feedback from 597 brokers on 44 lenders across banks, building societies, specialist lenders and lifetime providers, as well as their thoughts on the mortgage market in general.
Research by Smart Money People has found that brokers consider complex buy-to-let (BTL) lenders to be the most flexible with mortgage applications compared to any other part of the mortgage sector.
The Mortgage Lender Benchmark gathered feedback from 597 brokers on 44 lenders across banks, building societies, specialist lenders and lifetime providers, as well as their thoughts on the mortgage market in general.
Along with asking brokers to rate lenders on different aspects of their proposition, Smart Money People analysed the comments that brokers provide when asked what they like or what could be improved for each lender. These were then mapped across 20 themes.
Complex BTL lenders were rated 96% for their flexibility by brokers, while mainstream BTL lenders were rated 87% for flexibility.
Overall, lenders across all categories scored a rating of 79% for flexibility.
When asked what they liked about the lender they had placed a complex BTL application with, one broker said: “Flexibility and the underwriters look for a way to write the deal and work with you to get the best solutions for the clients.”
Brokers rated the underwriting from complex BTL lenders as higher than those in the mainstream, with a rating of 50% compared to 32% - the overall average across all lenders was 51%.
However, Smart Money People also found a marked difference between broker satisfaction with speed. Complex BTL lenders were rated just 29% for their speed and mainstream BTL lenders were rated 55%.
Complex BTL lenders were rated 67% - compared to 80% for those in the mainstream - for ease of application.
Regarding a complex BTL application, one broker said: “Their service delivery has a lot of scope to improvement. Too much time in processing leaves clients on the edge.”
Jacqueline Dewey, CEO of Smart Money People, said: “It’s clear that brokers realise and appreciate the complex nature of non-mainstream buy-to-let cases and how lenders approach them, especially when it comes to how flexible a lender is willing to be for these cases.
"However a rating of 29% for speed compared to the overall lender average of 58% shows that complex buy-to-let lenders still have room for improvement in their backend processes.”
