{"id":22159,"date":"2018-11-29T10:11:24","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T10:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyassociation.co.uk\/?p=22159"},"modified":"2018-11-29T10:11:24","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T10:11:24","slug":"are-building-societies-better-mortgage-lenders-than-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/news\/are-building-societies-better-mortgage-lenders-than-banks\/","title":{"rendered":"Are building societies better mortgage lenders than banks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building societies\u00a0<\/b>achieved<\/b>\u00a0a 10% r<\/b>ise in new mortgage approvals between July and September this year, increasing their share of the UK mortgage market.\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the financial crisis a decade ago, building societies have been making steady gains in the market. Net lending from building societies stands at\u00a0\u00a3105.4 billion, 47% of the total mortgage market.\u00a0According to the latest figures, with net\u00a0lending\u00a0of \u00a33.9 billion\u00a0in the third quarter of this year\u00a0building societies accounted for a significant 33% of the growth of the mortgage market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Customer perception influences lender choice<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The increasing prominence of building societies\u00a0in the market\u00a0could\u00a0be attributed\u00a0to the\u00a0stricter affordability criteria requirements\u00a0and\u00a0scaling back of mortgage lending by the big banks over recent years.\u00a0However, according to Which?\u00a0building\u00a0societies\u00a0do score\u00a0more\u00a0highly with customers for\u00a0good\u00a0interest rates\u00a0and\u00a0customer service, flexibility\u00a0and\u00a0offers\u00a0for local people\u00a0over the banks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building societies\u00a0also\u00a0tend to avoid the negative perceptions suffered by their bank counterparts. Being owned by their members and not driven by\u00a0shareholder goals, profits are\u00a0driven\u00a0back into the business, and into local community projects as many building societies retain strong links to the region where they\u00a0were established.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A personalised service\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building society borrowers also benefit from\u00a0a\u00a0more\u00a0personalised\u00a0decision\u00a0making process, which\u00a0suits homebuyers that don\u2019t neatly tick all the boxes or have a checkered credit score.\u00a0 Some building societies are well known for looking at cases outside the box, Bath, Market Harborough, Harpenden and Penrith included, and assessing applications\u00a0on individual merit.\u00a0 In such cases, building societies will beat most of the bigger\u00a0banks computer algorithm\u00a0driven\u00a0decisions\u00a0hands\u00a0down.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Niche offerings<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building societies\u00a0also use niche products to attract borrowers. For\u00a0example,\u00a0the Ecology Building Society specialises in lending for ecological new-builds, renovation of derelict buildings and energy-saving improvements to existing buildings, as well as affordable and community-led housing.\u00a0\u00a0Teachers Building Society focuses on a primary customer base of education and teaching professionals, and\u00a0Bath Building Society<\/a>\u00a0offers 100% loans to students wanting to buy a property\u00a0while\u00a0at\u00a0university.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Borrowers\u00a0<\/b>consistently\u00a0<\/b>rate building\u00a0<\/b>societies<\/b>\u00a0better than\u00a0<\/b>banks\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A Which?\u00a0survey\u00a0of 3,572 customers rated Principality Building Society as the best mortgage lender in Britain, with Nationwide coming joint second with First Direct. Coventry and Skipton Building societies took 5th<\/span>\u00a0and 6th<\/span>\u00a0place, with Virgin Money taking\u00a0the\u00a04th<\/span>\u00a0spot.\u00a0 With 7 out of the top 10 being building societies, perhaps it\u2019s time for the banks to evaluate where they are lacking?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building societies\u00a0achieved\u00a0a 10% rise in new mortgage approvals between July and September this year, increasing their share of the UK mortgage market.\u00a0\u00a0 Since the financial crisis a decade ago, building societies have been making steady gains in the market. Net lending from building societies stands at\u00a0\u00a3105.4 billion, 47% of the total mortgage market.\u00a0According to the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3380,"featured_media":9489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[370,368],"class_list":["post-22159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tax-mortgages-money","tag-banks","tag-building-societies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}