Redefining the ‘everyday’ borrower to help more people into homeownershipAffordability has dominated conversations in our industry in recent years, largely out of necessity rather than choice. Rising costs, tighter budgets, and market shifts have made homeownership harder for many.
As a result, we’re now seeing a different kind of credit-worthy borrower emerge, those who are generating non-standard income, incorporating gifted deposits, recovering from a historic credit blip, and on the journey to rebuild their credit history.
For lenders, that brings a clear challenge: how do we support such borrowers and keep the market moving?
At Buckinghamshire Building Society, we’ve spent the last 12 to 18 months focused on just that. We’ve listened to brokers, analysed our data, and looked at patterns and trends to understand the real barriers to homeownership and how we can address them.
It’s resulted in new products, new areas of lending, criteria changes, and a much clearer proposition.
A key part of this has been redefining and renaming our core mortgage product to better reflect the needs and circumstances of modern borrowers.
Accepting buyers no longer fit into neat boxes
Rather than being referred to as ‘standard’ or ‘prime’ residential, we’ve renamed our core mortgage range to ‘Everyday Residential’.
More than just a name change, it’s about acknowledging that buyers no longer fit into neat boxes, and that certain ‘quirks’ are no longer the exception, but the norm.
It reflects a more realistic view of the modern borrower and is designed to open up homeownership to a wider group of people, without pushing them down the more costly specialist lending route.
Everyday Residential recognises that people with minor credit blips, atypical income streams, or affordability constraints are the everyday customers in the current landscape. It offers them a more accessible and mainstream approach.
Alongside the name change, we’ve improved our credit matrix to be more inclusive of borrowers with past credit blips.
Cases can now be accepted with one single status 1 in the last 2 years on unsecured and secured credit. The allowable limit on CCJ for parking fines has also increased from £250 to £500.
This is in addition to changes we’ve made to improve and clarify our options for people with non-standard income.
It’s all part of our new approach to lending – The Bucks Way – which focuses on well-defined lending areas, so brokers and their clients know exactly how we can help.
Clarifying the proposition for brokers
A recent UK Finance report predicted a gradual improvement in mortgage affordability throughout 2025, noting that the market showed greater than expected resilience last year.
One of the reasons given for that resilience was ‘extensive lender forbearance’. Lenders have stepped up to address these challenges, something we’re used to doing in response to a range of factors, from economic and geopolitical shifts to downturns in the domestic market.
Of course, the other vital part of the equation is ensuring good communication with brokers, so they feel confident in supporting their clients with the right solution from the right lender.
That’s why, alongside the Everyday Residential range, we’ve clarified our proposition into four core areas of lending that reflect the main solutions we offer to the most common challenges faced by borrowers today. These are first-time buyers, non-standard income, and reviving and restoring credit.
We want brokers to know there are options for helping more borrowers into homeownership, and that they don’t always need a specialist lender for specialist cases.
