Something that astounds me in the midst of the credit crunch is the changing attitude of lenders. We are seeing reductions in what they are willing to lend on, much greater focus on the industry in which a person works in, and more importantly on the location and type of property that they are willing to lend on.
Reductions in what banks will lend on: Things like property development are all but non-existent, focus on a borrowers industry: this is turning lending into an almost ‘life assurance’ or actuarial based risk assessment, people who work in property will only be offered lower loan to value mortgages (they’ll have to come up with bigger deposits). The location and type of property that you can borrow for is also changing, many banks will only do 80% loans on apartments (and how many first time buyers – on of the main purchasers of apartments- have 20% deposits in their pocket?), and some banks will only lend 50% for an investment property that is not in a city!
Here is an ethos ‘We will …