Bluestone Home Loans has cut clawbacks on its prime product and announced a limited time waiver on investment loans.
It comes as the specialist mortgage lender aims to provide brokers with a broader and more competitive range of options.
Tony MacRae (pictured above), chief commercial officer at Bluestone Home Loans, said the company’s goal is to be the preferred partner for brokers for non-standard lending.
“We see these initiatives as further enhancing our offerings to provide brokers with certainty of revenue and good value alternatives delivered with market leading service and turnaround,” said MacRae.
For a limited time, Bluestone will waive its 0.3% investor loading on all Residential Investor Home Loans (excluding SMSF loans) submitted from August 1, 2024, and settled within 90 days from application approval date.
The decision comes amid heavy demand among investors who are piling their money into residential property despite higher interest rates.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the annual growth in the value of new investor home loans rose 30.2% in June from a year earlier.
This is well above owner-occupier and first home buyer loan values, which rose 13.2% and 3.4% respectively.
Bluestone has also now reduced the clawback period from 18 to six months on Prime Alt Doc home loan applications settled from August 1, 2024.
MacRae said this would deliver “greater income certainty” when submitting deals for borrowers in this cohort.
The announcement follows the non-standard lender cutting clawbacks by the same timeframe to its near prime and specialist home loan products in April this year.
Clawbacks have been a major point of frustration for brokers across the industry, leading some lenders to adjust these anti-churn policies to appeal more to third-party brokers.
In April, MacRae said: “There has been much debate in the industry around the fairness of clawbacks and we believe in this product set - it makes sense to reduce the at-risk period and we encourage brokers to explore non-standard lending as a means to grow their businesses.”
To cap off the announcements, the brand has also launched a new, improved Australian website experience for borrowers and brokers at bluestone.com.au.
Nicole Avery, chief marketing officer at Bluestone Home Loans, said the company had been “busily working away” in the background, developing a new digital experience designed to instil more trust in borrowers and inspire more confidence in brokers.
“The experience is more aligned with where we’re headed as a brand and will continue to evolve, but for now users can enjoy a better mobile experience and brokers now have a specialised Broker Hub, with more relevant content and resources,” said Avery.
