Taylor Scott International News
Peer to peer finance is set to revolutionise the UK mortgage industry, starting with secured lending to landlords, according to a new independent review of the buy to let mortgage industry. Population growth combined with a weak home building response mean the phenomenon of buy to let would survive a new recession similar to, or even worse than, that experienced in 2008, according to the research conducted by The Wriglesworth Consultancy and commissioned by peer to peer lender Landbay. However despite this, the research also reveals the higher price of buy to let finance, with average new mortgage rates one third more expensive for landlords than for owner occupiers. This leaves a gap for P2P mortgage lenders to disrupt the industry. In the first ever published stress tests for a peer to peer lender, the report also reveals that secured peer to peer lending against buy to let properties has a natural stability against economic shocks. This contrasts with severe uncertainty over other types of riskier peer to peer finance, such as unsecured personal loans to consumers, business credit, or other forms of direct peer to peer property ownership and development finance. Stress tests of Landbay’s loan book also indicate the importance of quality manual underwriting when lending to landlords. More attention to landlords’ personal finances makes loan books less prone to losses than historic examples of mass buy to let lending using automated underwriting systems to approve loans. ‘The mortgage world has changed. Now everyone has access to the sorts of markets that were once the preserve of large financial institutions,’ said John Goodall, chief executive officer of Landbay. ‘A new energy for more inclusive finance, combined with new technology, is revolutionising the world of saving and borrowing. This has only just begun, and over the long term the impact of these fundamental changes will be far greater than was at first envisioned,’ he explained. ‘All peer to peer finance is relatively new, but it would be an enormous mistake to assume that means this broad swathe of lending is in any way uniform. Combining P2P lending with the backstop of income producing property as security can create an entirely different class of investment while shaking up competition in the world of mortgage lending,’ he added. Taylor Scott International
Taylor Scott International, Taylor Scott
