Gatehouse Bank reduces minimum Home Finance amount to £75,000

Gatehouse Bank has reduced the minimum finance amount for its Home Purchase Plans (HPPs) and Buy-to-Let (BTL) range from £100,000 to £75,000. This will apply to all customers including UK Residents, UK Expats and International Residents. It also applies to purchases of HMOs and MUFBs.

The Bank has also improved its application criteria for BTL customers by removing the requirement for a minimum income of £18,000. Landlords who already own a BTL property will no longer require a minimum income for most of our BTL products if the property’s rental income exceeds the monthly finance payment at the applicable Finance Service Coverage Ratio (FSCR).

This change covers BTL applicants who are resident in the UK, along with UK Expats and International Residents, and includes Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) and Multi-Unit Freehold Blocks (MUFBs).

The only exceptions are;

i) If the applicant is a first-time buyer and/or first-time landlord. In this case, at least one applicant will need to demonstrate annual income of at least £15,000.

ii) Evidence of this level of income will also be required of all applicants where the rental income doesn’t meet the applicable FSCR threshold (either 125% or 145%), and personal income is used to supplement monthly payments - known as ‘income top up’ or ’top slicing’ which is only available to UK Residents and UK Expats.

The changes come just a few weeks after the Bank increased the maximum finance amount on its HPPs to £5million to bring them in line with its BTL products.

John Mace, Product Manager at Gatehouse Bank, said:

“The UK property market remains incredibly buoyant despite recent rises in the Bank of England Base Rate and these improvements ensure our offering continues to be very competitive and more accessible to homebuyers.

“This comes just a couple of weeks after we increased the maximum finance level of our HPP products to £5m and increased the amount we will finance at 80% FTV from £1m to £2m for both homebuyers and landlords.”

Click here for the full Gatehouse Bank BTL product tables and here for the HPP product tables.