Mortgage lenders look to graduates

Following problems within the credit market, lenders are increasingly looking to reduce their level of risk when offering credit, it has been claimed.

According to Helen Adams, director of FirstRungNow.com, mortgage lenders are now choosing to target "better qualified" people.

Graduate mortgages are among the products that lenders are likely to focus on, and are unlikely to be "put off" by people in debt because with such mortgages they can "hope those debts will be paid off", she commented.

"The lenders take a holistic view about earning versus debts and look at the whole picture, and they won’t lend unless they think that the risk is reasonable to them," Ms Adams claimed.

In related news, the Council of Mortgage Lenders reported earlier in the month that first-time buyers contributed 20.6 per cent of their income towards paying their mortgage interest in October, compared with 20.4 per cent a month earlier.

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