Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) provided a record number of first-time buyer mortgages last year due to its presence in the 90 per cent LTV market.
In its annual results for 2020, published today (February 24), the building society said it had provided 10,854 first-time buyer mortgages during the year.
The figure was up 39 per cent on 2019, when it provided 7,789 first-time buyer mortgages.
YBS said the figure was due to its provision of 90 per cent LTV mortgages wherever service levels allowed.
Over a period of three months last year its subsidiary, Accord Mortgages, offered 90 per cent LTV home purchase products for limited periods of several days.
But in mid-November the intermediary-only lender relaunched home purchase products at 90 per cent LTV into its core range, as well as remortgage products for the first time since the start of the pandemic, on a “more consistent” basis.
Mike Regnier, chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society, said: “As an organisation which aims to deliver real help and value to its customers, we were very pleased to help a record number of first-time buyers in 2020. We’ll continue to support those buying homes in 2021.”
The society provided a total of 72,127 mortgages throughout 2020, resulting in total mortgage balances increasing by £800m to £38.8bn.
YBS said the number of mortgages offered fell in the first half of the year when the housing market was effectively closed.
But the society added it had seen significant levels of activity in the second half of the year and particularly following the stamp duty holiday.
It continued: “This, combined with other factors such as a rise in home working, drove an increase in demand in the house purchase market. Overall, the mortgage market recovered to end the year strongly, given the circumstances.”
chloe.cheung@ft.com
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