Ipswich Building Society has raised its loan-to-income multiple from 4.5 times income to 5.5 times income for anybody earning over £75,000 a year.

The lender says that this piece of criteria is not limited to the standard list of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers and accountants, because of its manual underwriting process – each case can be looked at on its own terms.

As well as this, for affordability assessment purposes, Ipswich is now allowing potential borrowers to exclude household non-dependants in their applications, increasing the regular shift pay allowance from 50 per cent to 100 per cent, allowing the use of 100 per cent of buy-to-let profits and is now accepting income from retired company directors who still receive an income from the business.

Ipswich Building Society chief executive Richard Norrington says: “We feel this is an important step given the recent upwards movements in house prices and predictions of further growth this year.

“While it’s likely that many higher multiple applicants will be professionals, it’s important to us to be inclusive and that’s why we’ve taken the step to allow anyone with a higher income to apply, so that we don’t exclude individuals who have made a financial success of their career in other fields or industries.”