Enness opens international office in Switzerland

Enness has opened an international office in Geneva, Switzerland, which will be headed by Tomasz Wozniak.

The mortgage broker has secured partnership agreements with several of the world’s leading Swiss private banks and asset managers.

As part of these agreements, Enness will have access to international mortgage and credit sourcing services for their clients and prospects.

Islay Robinson, chief executive of Enness, commented: “Switzerland has long been a key territory for high net worth mortgage placements and Geneva has always been a regular destination in our international travel schedule. Geneva is widely regarded as the “private client capital of the world”, is home to some of the world’s largest private banks and has a significant concentration of wealth managers, family offices and private client advisers.

He added: ‘Enness (Switzerland) GmbH will primarily seek to extend and enhance our already thriving relationships across Switzerland, showing our commitment to the country in offering international mortgage solutions to its residents and advisers and to complement our activities in Monaco, London, Jersey, Ibiza and Dubai. To date this year we have processed over £6bn in new mortgage enquiries at an average loan size of £2.56m and so our brand is already synonymous with wealthy and complex individuals which bodes well for our Swiss expansion.”

Mortgage lending drops 14.7% y-o-y

Mortgage lending in third quarter down fell by 14.7%, according to the Bank of England.

The data shows that gross mortgage lending in the third quarter of 2020 totalled £62.5bn.

But the market has picked up, with the value of new mortgage commitments 6.8% higher than a year earlier, at £78.9bn, and the highest level since 2007.

The total value of all residential mortgage loans was £1,527.3bn at the end of 2020 Q3, up 2.9% year-on-year.

Carlos Thibault, board member of the Society of Mortgage Professionals, said: “The data clearly reflects the dramatic effect Covid-19 has had on the mortgage market. Conversely, there has been a significant V shaped recovery in new commitments driven by pent up demand during lockdown and the stamp duty reduction which comes to an end in March 2021.”

Property Master introduces new BTL calculator

Property Master has launched a buy-to-let mortgage calculator that uses artificial intelligence to instantly go through thousands of lending and affordability criteria.

The online buy-to-let mortgage broker’s new calculator takes as input a property value, a rental income and the purpose of the mortgage.

It also asks the user whether they are seeking to borrow a specific amount, expressed in pounds or as an LTV, or whether they wish to find the maximum amount they can borrow.

It matches this data against every product from every lender in the buy-to-let mortgage market.

It will then display the best deal, but it will also flag how an even better deal can be found by making a minor reduction to the amount the landlord wishes to borrow.

Angus Stewart, chief executive of Property Master, said: “This new calculator really is a game changer for landlords looking for a mortgage.”

Pepper Money permits brokers to conduct their own valuations

Pepper Money will now allow brokers to instruct their own valuations, with a view to giving brokers greater control over the progress of their application.

The change means brokers can instruct valuations at any time in the process once their customer’s application has been assessed.

Once Pepper Money has received and assessed all of the decision-making documents, it will automatically instruct a valuation, but brokers can choose to instruct the valuation earlier to speed the progress of the case.

Paul Adams, sales director at Pepper Money, commented: “Why let your customer wait for a valuation when you are confident a case is going to proceed?

“We give brokers more control over the progress of their applications by instructing their own valuations as soon as the application has been reviewed, which means they no longer have to wait for all of the documents to be reviewed to get the ball rolling on the valuation.”