West One launches new 'Platinum' residential range with fixed rates starting from 5.45%

West One Loans has launched a new range of residential mortgages with rates up to 94 basis points lower than its existing product set.

The specialist lender’s new ‘Platinum’ range has five and two-year fixed rates starting at 5.45% and 5.59%, respectively – 79 and 90 basis points lower than equivalent products in its existing ranges.

The Platinum range also offers trackers starting at 6.3%, which is 94 basis points less than West One’s cheapest equivalent product.

The new range is available to first-time buyers, home movers and remortgage customers and sits alongside West One’s existing

Prime Plus, Prime and Near Prime product sets.

The Platinum range also has its own unique criteria, including:

Maximum loan size of £1m (Max £500k for unencumbered properties)
Maximum LTV of 70%
Maximum LTI of 4.5 times income
Interest only available up to 65% LTV
Mortgage/secured arrears – 0 in last 12 months, allowing for one missed payment in the last 24 months
CCJ’s and defaults – 0 in 24 months.

The launch follows West One’s recent decision to switch from percentage based fees to a flat-fee structure for its residential ranges. The move will benefit the vast majority of borrowers with arrangement fees fixed between £995 and £2,995, depending on the loan size.

West One also recently slashed its second charge rates by up to 49 basis points. It means the lender now offers second charge rates from a highly competitive 7.45%.

The lender launched into the residential market for the first time in October last year with a range of products aimed at those likely to be turned down by high street lenders.

Marie Grundy, managing director of West One’s residential and second charge divisions, said:

“We’re absolutely thrilled to be able to launch such a highly competitive new range of residential deals so quickly after launching into this area of the market.

“We’ve spent the past few months fine-tuning our criteria and making sure that it delivers on our promise to help those who are underserved by the high street.

“We’re confident it does but with the launch of this new range, we now have a pricing proposition that is a match for anything in the specialist residential market.

“We are able to offer such competitive pricing because we have an extremely strong and diverse funding network; and that is because our investors have confidence in our ability to lend prudently and at scale.

“We are very happy with what we have achieved in our first seven months in the residential space, but we have ambitions to rapidly grow our market share.”