This is the third post of this little series where I wanted to give you a review on the specialist lenders from a mortgage brokers perspective. You can see the other reviews here. We have all read reviews online, but you are more likely to find negative reviews. There is a reason for that though, people are more likely to go online and vent their frustrations than they are to say how well someone has done. So I thought a brokers perspective, someone who has dealt with all of these lenders on a regular basis may help to give a more balance view.
My history with Bluestone
Where do we begin… We were one of the first mortgage brokers to use Bluestone when they launched. They were quite unique and I think they really helped to open up the more specialist part of the market. They are not the biggest but they were prepared to go to the next stage in terms of risk.
Like all of the specialist lenders they have had their ups and downs over the years, during Covid they frustrated me a lot as they stopped taking on new business with no real notice. They have however come back and been a solid lender since, they seem to be in a good place at the moment though and so currently in our good books.
The good
At the minute they seem to be fully staffed with good turn around times. Their underwriting seems to be consistent and mostly common sense. There are a few frustrations but nothing too bad (asking for a document about commitments if the customer has none for instance…).
Rates are not great, but then they do cover a part of the market with very little competition and they do accept more adverse than other lenders so it is easy to see why.
Criteria, as mentioned above they do accept more than most other lenders. There criteria is also quite flexible so if there is something a little outside of criteria, there is the potential for an exception to be made for the right applications which is always nice.
The bad
As with the 2 previous posts, the big one for me is using bank statements to assess expenditure rather than using ONS figures. It just results in more work for everyone and takes longer.
Aside from that, other than a few quirks in their process there is not too much else wrong with Bluestone. They are generally a pretty decent mortgage lender.
Summary
A solid lender for people with bad credit. Rates are a little higher than the other adverse lenders, but they are generally more forgiving than other lenders so the 2 will usually go hand in hand.
We like them here, but they are generally seen as a lender of last resort. It is interesting as if you look at their reviews on Trustpilot, they were quite bad in 2020, but have improved more recently and I think that tallies up with our experience, they have come a long way in the last 6-12 months.