Nationwide to withdraw 90% and 95% mortgage deals

Nationwide Building Society is set to pull all its 90% and 95% loan-to-value (LTV) products from the market tomorrow, leaving many first-time buyers and homeowners looking for a mortgage at a high LTV struggling to find a competitive deal.

As one of the largest mortgage providers in the UK, this announcement from Nationwide will come as a huge blow for first-time buyers hoping to get on the housing ladder. In addition to this, homeowners with little equity in their homes will find it challenging to find a remortgage deal at a high LTV. Existing Nationwide customers will be able to switch to a new mortgage deal regardless of their LTV as long as there is no increase in LTV.

At the moment, there are currently 115 deals available at a 90% LTV and 33 at a 95% LTV, but with Nationwide withdrawing its deals, this is expected to drop significantly tomorrow.

Commenting on the decision to withdraw its 90% and 95% deals from the market, Henry Jordan, director of mortgages at Nationwide Building Society, said: “The outlook for the mortgage market and house prices remains uncertain. As a responsible lender we must factor this uncertainty into our lending assessments, which is why we have taken the decision to reduce our maximum LTV for new business.

“Our priority at this time must be to help members keep their homes. As such, we need to ensure our members can afford their repayments, while doing what we can to protect them from falling into negative equity.

“We will continue to keep this situation under review and hope to return to lending at higher LTVs in the near future.”

Last week, we reported that many lenders were starting to pull 90% LTV deals from the market, with Virgin Money, Accord Mortgages, Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale all withdrawing high LTV deals. In addition to this, since March, many 95% LTV products have been removed from the market and have not been relaunched by lenders.

With so many high LTV deals being pulled from the market, borrowers and first-time buyers looking for a deal at 90% LTV or above should speak to a mortgage broker who will be able to provide advice about what options are available to them.