‘Tsunami of changes’ leads to 1325 brokers signing up for Knowledge Bank’s live feed as it adds new categories, second charges and bridging
03 April 2020
Knowledge Bank has added second charges and bridging to its Covid-19 live feed as an increasing number of lenders change products or pull lending in these sectors. It has also added a raft of new categories for residential and buy-to-let.
Demand for Knowledge Bank’s free Covid-19 live feed of lender criteria changes has now exceeded 1300 just two weeks from its launch. The feed was created to help the market, providing brokers with a free of charge, single point of reference for every lender’s criteria, policy and processes relating to the COVID-19 situation. 509 brokers had signed up in under 24 hours desperate to keep on top of the rapid number of changes and this number has continued to escalate in line with the number of lender changes.
And never has there been more need for such information. In the past two weeks there have been almost 3,000 additions and changes to criteria.
Many lenders have introduced additional restrictions on both loan sizes and property values to order to allow applications to proceed using automated valuation models (AVMs). 12 lenders have restricted applications by either property type, such as new build, some have restricted by job type for example some no longer lend to people in the travel industry or retail while 11 lenders that have stopped accepting residential applications altogether.
In addition, ten buy-to-let lenders have also restricted new mortgage applications by property or job type, while 15 buy-to-let lenders have pulled their products altogether, showing a desperate need for non-bank lenders to have access to the government’s term funding scheme.
After a two-week period that has seen an average of almost 300 changes per day however, it is finally starting to get a littler quieter, which suggests that lenders are starting to get to grips with the way the market is now and have decided on their lending positions. This should make things a little easier for brokers to advise their clients.
Overwhelmingly lenders are telling Knowledge Bank that the two main factors forcing them to pause new lending and restrict LTVs are the additional staffing resource needed to implement the payment holidays and their inability to obtain physical valuations on properties due to the government’s guidelines on social distancing.
In order to show the full range of Covid-19 related changes, Knowledge Bank has now updated its free live feed so that brokers can search under the following categories for residential and buy-to-let relating specifically to Covid-19 policy and processes:
- COVID-19: Capital and Interest to Interest Only
- COVID-19: Product Transfer Eligibility
- COVID-19: Late Payment Fees
- COVID-19: Furloughed Workers
- COVID-19: Mortgage Payment Holidays
- COVID-19: Temporary LTV Restrictions
Subscriptions to Knowledge Bank enable brokers to also look at the wider number of changes that lenders are making as well as real-time banner alerts as lenders announce changes. On the positive, the number of brokers going beyond the free live feed and taking annual subscriptions to Knowledge Bank has soared, showing that many brokers are clearly not only advising clients now but are looking to the future, already planning for when the current pandemic lock down is over.
Nicola Firth, founder and CEO of Knowledge Bank said: “The number and type of changes we have seen from lenders in the past two weeks are completely off the scale of anything ever seen before. Not only are lenders having to make fundamental changes, they are having to do it while working from home and often with a reduced number of staff. For brokers trying keep on top of these changes and advise their clients trying to it must feel like a tsunami.
“We have added new categories to our free-of-charge ‘COVID-19 Criteria Live Feed’ lender changes in order to play our small part in helping advisers to keep advising, especially at this time when their clients need them most.”
Multi-award winning criteria search system Knowledge Bank, instantly responded to the government’s announcement that all homeowners who need it may take a three month mortgage payment holiday. It jumped into action building a completely free-to-use live feed for brokers just a few hours after the announcement. It continues to be updated by lenders themselves, in real-time, as they release their criteria.
Brokers wanting to use the free tool can find it at: https://www.yourknowledgebank.uk/covid19?
