Advantage withdraws from mortgage market

Advantage Home Loans has withdrawn from the mortgage market.

The lender is a division of Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank, and specialises in loans for first-time buyers, at one point offering a product based on seven-times income.

Advantage is also one of the four lenders approved by the Government under its HomeBuy scheme, which aims to help social tenants, key workers and other first-time buyers to buy a share of a home and get a first step on the property ladder.

Advantage has withdrawn all its products with immediate effect but applications in the pipeline and processed before 15th February could still be approved. Existing advantage customers will not be affected.

Around 8,000 of Advantage’s borrowers are managed by Homeloans Management, which will continue to service the customers.

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government says: “This is a commercial decision for the company involved, but it won’t impact on the HomeBuy scheme. From October last year, we introduced a broader range of products and lenders, which means first-time buyers can still reap the benefits of the scheme.”

It is understood that Advantage did little business via the HomeBuy scheme because of Morgan Stanley’s problems in the US sub-prime market.

It has been withdrawing products for some months, as its parent company reviewed its lending criteria.

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