So if you have a 40% equity value in your property you can choose from as many as 4,588 different products. The findings also show that there are only 74 mortgage products available if you need to borrow more than 95% of the value of your home. But the number of products increases to 466 for homeowners with 10% equity in their property. The range of mortgages jumps seven-fold to 3,360 for borrowers who own a quarter (25%) of their homes.
Over the last ten years homeowners with interest-only mortgages have seen the size of their loans compared to the value of their properties shrink as house prices climbed. Those who bought their homes early on will have benefitted substantially, but those who bought their properties later have been less fortunate.
Homeowners in Northern Ireland who bought their properties with 100% interest-only mortgages before July 2004 should still have 40% equity in their homes. Meanwhile, people in Scotland who bought before July 2003 should be able to access a raft of favourable mortgages at 60% LTV.
In the main, UK homeowners who bought their homes before July 2002 will be able to take their pick from over 4,000 mortgage products that are limited to people with 60% LTV. However, Greater London and homeowners in the South East should have bought before year 2001.
David Kuo, Head of Personal Finance at Fool.co.uk, says: "If proof was ever needed that banks like to lend money to people who need it least, then this is it.
"But you don't have to rely on rising property prices to shrink the loan-to-value. There are other ways, such as increasing your monthly mortgage repayments, which will also reduce the size of your loan compared to the value of the property.
"Alternatively, homeowners may want consider exploiting weakness in the property market to upsize, especially if the amount of equity in their homes will allow them to access mortgage products that others can't.
"Rising property values has made it easy for many homeowners to seemingly make money out of thin air. Some may argue that those who bought their homes early were just lucky. But when it comes to mortgages, the harder you work at paying off the loan, the luckier you will get."
