One in six (17%) Brits say they were declined for a mortgage because they run their own business, research from specialist mortgage broker platform Haysto has found.
A further 15% of sole traders, and 14% of directors of a limited companies, said they were turned down because of their job role.
After being rejected 31% claimed they were left feeling depressed, while 29% felt they were treated unfairly.
Paul Coss, co-founder of Haysto, said: “Getting a mortgage when you’re self-employed can be difficult, as mortgage lenders tend to prefer people in full-time employment because it’s easy and simple to understand their income.
“Being self-employed, your income isn’t as straightforward, and people shouldn’t be penalised for that.
“Despite self-employed people usually earning more money than if they were on a salary, mortgage lenders just aren’t set up to deal with complex incomes.”
The most significant cuts have been made to its ‘Large HMO’ proposition (HMO properties with 7 occupants or more), with rates starting from 4.34%.
Gavin Seaholme, head of sales at Shawbrook’s Property Finance division, said: “This is the first of many steps in our plan to evolve our offering this year, and one we hope is well-received by the broker market as they seek specialist buy-to-let options for their clients.
“Following recent positive changes to our bridging product range, we’re pleased to be doing the same in the BTL and HMO arena, once again showing our commitment to the specialist market.”
In Stirling out of the 327 homes for sale in this historic Scottish city, 75% are under offer or subject to contract.
Demand was lowest in Westminster, Aberdeen and Bangor, all of which have been dubbed sellers markets.
Some 36% of homes are for sale or under offer in London.
Gavin Brazg, founder of PropCast and TheAdvisory said: “Kicking off 2021, we can see buyer demand remains at record high levels across many parts of the UK.
“Even with the stamp duty holiday ending in March we don’t expect these elevated levels of buyer demand to peter out anytime soon.
“If the first lockdown has anything to teach us it’s that buyer demand does not diminish in a lockdown, it just gets deferred (and concentrated) causing a further spike when restrictions are lifted.”
From January 2017 to November 2020 (inclusive), the proportion of EU renters in England fell from 20% to 14% of all tenants.
Looking at tenancies in London, where a large proportion of EU tenants choose to live, during 2017, the average proportion of London tenants who were originally from EU countries stood at 29%. In 2018, this dropped to 24% and then further to 22.5% in 2019. In 2020, EU tenants accounted for just 22% of London residents.
Tom Mundy, chief operating officer of Goodlord, said: “There was no mass exodus of EU citizens following the Brexit vote.
“Instead, we’ve seen a steady but marked decrease in the number of people from the EU moving to England over the last four years.
“This trend has borne out across the whole of England, but particularly so in London, which had a higher number of EU tenants to start with.
“We saw a bump in numbers in 2018 just ahead of the two-year deadline, as those wishing to make England their home took what might have been their last chance.
“But, since then, each passing month has seen the number of people from Europe signing rental agreements steadily decline.”
