Loan amount
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Loan to value — the loan as a percentage of the property's value — is the single number that most shapes your rate: lenders price in LTV bands, and crossing a band boundary (90% to 85%, 85% to 80%, 80% to 75%) can move the rate more than any other single change. Enter your property value and loan (or deposit) to find your band.
For contractors, the LTV lever is often the most controllable one: where the income side is fixed by the day rate, a few thousand pounds of additional deposit at a band boundary can buy a rate improvement worth far more over the fixed period.
Lenders tier products at standard boundaries — typically 95%, 90%, 85%, 80%, 75% and 60% — with pricing improving at each step down. The improvement is not linear: the steps from 95% to 90% and 90% to 85% are usually the steepest, which is where deposit pounds work hardest.
Remortgages run the same logic on current value: if your property has risen since purchase, your LTV may have fallen a band or two without any overpayment — frequently the quiet win that makes a remortgage compelling.
Sitting at 86% LTV? The deposit pounds that reach 85% buy a band. Valuation a few thousand short of a boundary on remortgage? The valuation challenge or a modest overpayment may cross it. We run the boundary arithmetic on every case, because the band — not the decimal — is what the pricing reads.
The deposit-side strategies for contractors short of a band — Track Record, family boosters, the 95% routes — are mapped across our first-time buyer and lender pages.
