Saffron Building Society has cut loan-to-value rates and launched a raft of new products as lenders respond to the strong start to the year.

The Essex-based lender says after an “unprecedented year for the industry” due to the pandemic, this move is the “biggest product update that the society has undertaken in some time”.

A flurry of large and medium-sized lenders have returned to the market with a range of 90 per cent mortgages in recent weeks as the government’s stamp duty holiday, which ends in March, still powers the market.

Saffron launches two new first-time buyer 90 per cent loan-to-value products. The two-year and five-year fixed rate products offer a 3.77 per cent and 4.07 per cent rate, respectively. Both products carry no arrangement fee, offer a free valuation and accept gifted deposits.

It also launches two-year and five-year fixed rate limited company buy-to-let products, at 2.87 per cent and 3.47 per cent, respectively. Both products offer an LTV of 75 per cent on limited company purchases and remortgages.

The lender is reducing the rate on its Everyday BTL Five Year Fixed to 3.47 per cent. All three of these new BTL products are offered with a reduced arrangement fee, for a limited time only.

Finally, the firm launches two new 90 per cent LTV mortgages for existing homeowners who want to move home or remortgage, at rates of 3.57 per cent and 3.77 per cent, respectively. Both come with a free valuation.

Saffron interim head of mortgage sales Tony Hall says: “Our successful return to the 90 per cent LTV first-time buyer market in 2020 gave us the insight we needed to create a product that would offer those struggling with upfront finances a helping-hand on to the property ladder.”

Hall adds: “Having re-entered the residential buy-to-let market at the end of 2020, we had always intended to return with a product for limited companies, and following feedback during our webinars with brokers, we decided now was the right time.”