Speaking on the Mortgage Solutions podcast in association with Foundation Home Loans were Grant Hendry, sales director at Foundation Home Loans, and Damian Cain (pictured), director and owner of Complete FS Packagers.
The panellists discussed the changing shape of packagers since the pandemic and the areas of lending growth both firms were seeing.
BTL diversification
Hendry noted a rise in landlords applying for more second charges and bridging loans as they looked to alternative ways to fund investment purchases.
Cain noted the complete shift in personal and limited company BTL.
“Between 2010 and 2020, more than 50% of our business in the specialist market was single-unit personal buy to lets,” said Cain. “That business has virtually disappeared. [Now] we probably do less than 5% of our business written on personal buy to lets.”
He said the largest growth area had been where professional landlords were looking to maximise yields on their properties, which had brought with it demand for house of multiple occupancy (HMO) products, multi-unit block (MUB) mortgages and the consolidation of portfolios.
The packager has also seen growth in the conversion of offices into residential and large single homes into HMOs.
“Good packagers”, he added, “aren’t seen as [an] extra hurdle to get over, we’re seen as a concierge service, the ones able to clear the path to getting the finance.”
Soft launch partners
Packagers, said Cain, are increasingly being used as test-and-learn partners by lenders.
New market entrants are soft launching their products through limited packager partners to test them out before they hit the wider market.
Listen to the full podcast to hear more about the changing landscape for packagers and the pivotal role they play in Foundation Home Loans’ process.
This is the second in a series of podcasts with Foundation Home Loans supported by Mortgage Solutions. Watch the first one, covering brokers interacting with specialist conveyancers, here. The podcast features Grant Hendry, director of sales at Foundation Home Loans, and Damian Cain, director and owner of Complete FS. The host is Samantha Partington, freelance journalist for Mortgage Solutions.
