Vida Homeloans overhauls resi and buy-to-let ranges

Vida has made criteria changes and cut rates across its residential and buy-to-let product ranges.

Vida Homeloans overhauls resi and buy-to-let ranges

Specialist mortgage lenderVida Homeloans has overhauled its residential and buy-to-let product ranges by reducing rates and making criteria changes.

The lender has cut rates on its residential range for interest-only loans over £1m and Helping Hand (joint borrower sole proprietor) products, excluding its Fee Saver range.

Louisa Sedgwick (pictured), director of sales, mortgages, Vida Homeloans, said: “This is the most significant product change since we launched three years ago.

“Vida’s aim is to make specialist mortgages simple and we are always looking for ways to streamline the broker experience and make life easier for our customers to do business with us.

“In the three years since launch we have always listened to feedback and made improvements and now it’s time to simplify the Vida offering for brokers.

“We continue to see strong demand from our intermediary partners and we want to continue to grow our lending and offer a great service to brokers and customers.

“These changes are a planned and necessary part of that process.”

It has also enhanced its self-employed contractor criteria, now basing affordability calculations on day rate times 46 weeks.

On its buy-to-let range, it has reduced rates for first-time buyers/first-time landlords, loans over £1m and HMOs and MUBs, again excluding Fee Saver. Vida has also removed its previous cap of 100 properties per portfolio.

For self-funding buy-to-let landlords, Vida has reduced income and employment verification.

Vida has also simplified its credit status tier structure to help intermediaries find a product to suit their customers with impaired and improving credit profiles, and HP payments are now treated as unsecured loans.