Alex Hammond, head of marketing and communications at the specialist lender, said: “We have an appetite to grow our lending right across our business and new build is an area where we are investigating ways to improve our proposition for brokers and their clients.
“Offer periods and offer extensions, for example, are an important element of a new build transaction where the completion date may be uncertain and this is one of the things that is on our radar currently.”
Speaking during a Mortgage Introducer roundtable Terry Higgins, mortgage services director at The New Homes Group, said the lender had been in talks with his firm to get input into how to serve new build borrowers better.
He said: “New lenders actively seek us out to have conversations on a regular basis – they was the input.
“Whether they can turn that into something tangible is still to be seen. There is a perception from some lenders that new build lending criteria has to be quirky and there has to be something that differentiates them from a competitor.
“Some of these oddities trip you up and hold you back whereas a more mainstream approach and regulating the risk through the interest rate would be a better approach.”
Kensington underwrites every application on the individual’s circumstances and can lend to customers who have had credit blips more than two years ago or are in a performing debt management plan.
Currently it will lend on new build houses through its core range up to 80% loan-to-value and new build flats up to 75% LTV and accepts a builder’s deposit up to 5%.
