New research from Legal & General Mortgage Club has revealed that later-life lending products are gaining more interest from brokers.
The club surveyed nearly 50 lender representatives at its recent Lender Senate, asking them about their views on the future of the mortgage market, the opportunities and challenges facing the industry. The results found that 80% of lenders were seeing more interest from brokers looking for later life products.
When asked which areas they planned to focus their proposition on in 2019, 52% of lenders stated that lending into retirement was a priority. However, buy-to-let also remained a strong focus (52%), while 46% also planned to look at better service and technology.
According to the lenders in the room, the top three reasons for consumers wanting to unlock equity were: to support younger family members onto the property ladder (63%), improve their standard of living in retirement (41%) and to pay off existing liabilities such as an interest-only mortgage (39%).
Kevin Roberts, director of Legal & General Mortgage Club, said: “The retirement lending market continues to grow year-on-year to serve the varied needs and plans of the over-55s. People are now borrowing later in life for all sorts of reasons, from simply enjoying retirement to helping family members onto the property ladder. As an industry, we need to be able to provide consumers with a holistic offering, which encompasses lifetime mortgages and other later life lending solutions.
“Brokers and lenders are clearly recognising the trends in this market and over the last year there has clearly been a big shift in the products available to customers, which is helping more advisers to meet the needs of their older clients. At Legal & General Mortgage Club we fully intend to continue supporting brokers in this space with education through the information we share and the events we run. Retirement Interest-Only is one particular area where we are looking to increase our support for brokers, and we’ll be working with lenders to deliver the help and training advisers both want and need.”