Gen H has announced they’ll include Experian’s Score Boost data in their credit decisioning to help more aspiring homeowners find their place on the property ladder, sooner.
Many aspiring homeowners are locked out of homeownership by credit scores that don’t meet a lender’s credit threshold. Experian Boost takes into account recurring expenses like Netflix, Spotify or council tax – payments which don’t usually count toward your credit score – as proof of responsible money management to help build users’ credit.
Gen H is one of a few residential mortgage lenders in the market to use this boosted data in their lending decisioning processes. This means more customers below the minimum credit threshold could be able to increase their score enough to buy a home where they couldn’t before.
Customers can sign up with Experian for free to proactively report their regular payments via open banking. And there’s no downside for customers because Score Boost won’t adversely impact your score.
This type of innovation is welcome in today’s mortgage market. According to a recent Zoopla survey, 18% of 18- to 39-year-olds would consider buying a home with friends, and 31% would be open to part-ownership or using a scheme like Help to Buy.
Aspiring homeowners are clearly ready to embrace innovative ways of buying and owning a home. Imagine if achieving homeownership was as simple as reporting your Netflix subscription each month?
This partnership expands on Gen H’s already radical innovations in the mortgage market. The lender has created smarter, more flexible options for affordability and deposit support, allowing more customers and their families to unlock financial support where they may not have been able to before. This commitment to tech-led innovation for the benefit of customers is central to the lender’s mission.
Gen H Chief Commercial Officer Peter Dockar said,
“We are working to remove the blockers faced by aspiring homeowners in this country – from income constraints to deposit constraints and now credit constraints – because in this market, buyers need all the help they can get. For some aspiring homeowners, Score Boost could be the difference between finally climbing onto the ladder or not. We’re already seeing cases in our pipeline that will benefit from the boosted credit scores. Buyers are commonly told to ‘just cancel Netflix’ to afford a mortgage. We say, don’t cancel it – keep it, report it, and use it to boost your credit.”