The platform’s criteria activity tracker found that regulated bridging topped the most searched criteria in the bridging category, followed by maximum LTV for bridging, and development bridging – max LTV on acquisition.

In the commercial space, commercial investment mortgages was the most searched, followed by maximum LTV and semi-commercial properties.

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Top five searches performed by brokers on Knowledge Bank during December 2018

Nicola Firth, CEO at Knowledge Bank (pictured above), said that the year ended largely as it had started with a huge number of searches across the different product areas.

“During 2018, new lenders entered the market, but it was product innovation that really was the stand-out change.

“With interest rates remaining low, lenders continue to compete on criteria in addition to rate, which makes it increasingly difficult for a broker to know who will or won’t accept their client.

“This product growth was coupled over the year with borrowers having increasingly complex property and financial circumstances.

“On average, brokers searched on five individual pieces of criteria for each borrower, which shows how essential it is for a system to ensure that cases are not sent to lenders who will inevitably turn them down.”