Compare Mortgage Rates from Furness Building Society Against the Market

Compare Furness Building Society mortgage rates online

Furness Building Society is a mutual building society that was founded in 1865. The firm was established to “empower people” in the North West and Cumbria and serve as an asset to its community. Today, they mainly specialise in mortgages and savings accounts.

Unlike most high street banks, Furness has no shareholders to pay dividends to, which means they are better placed than some lenders to offer flexible mortgage products. You can compare the latest rates from this lender against more than 90 others by using our free mortgage sourcing tool below:

What type of mortgages do they offer?

Furness Building Society have a wide range of mortgage products available, divided into the following categories:

• Homemover mortgages
• First-time buyer mortgages
• Remortgages
• Self-employed mortgages
• Short-term mortgages
• Buy-to-let mortgages
• Holiday-let mortgages
• Later-life mortgages

This lender’s product range is dominated by 2 and 5-year fixed-rate mortgages and 2-year discount mortgages. They also offer exclusive deals for existing customers as well as specialist products such as self-build mortgages and green mortgages.

A choice of capital repayment or interest-only is offered on some products.

Self-Employed Mortgage Range

If you run your own Limited Company, you likely know that keeping money retained in your business is the most tax-efficient way to operate. The problem? Most high-street banks calculate your mortgage affordability based only on the salary and dividends you actually draw out. If you draw out less to avoid higher-rate tax, the bank's computer algorithm offers you a smaller mortgage.

Furness Building Society takes a much more pragmatic, human approach. Their underwriters assess Limited Company Directors using salary plus your share of the net profit (before tax). Because they look at the actual health and profitability of your business rather than just your personal tax return, you can often secure a significantly larger loan size with Furness than you would at a major high-street lender.

Holiday Let & Buy-to-Let Rules

Whether you are purchasing a standard residential Buy-to-Let or capitalising on the UK staycation market with a Holiday Let, Furness offers flexible criteria backed by human decision-making.

They will lend up to 80% LTV on both Buy-to-Lets and Holiday Let properties, provided the standard BTL property meets a minimum EPC rating of 'C' for that top bracket. Unlike stricter lenders, Furness requires a straightforward rental stress test of just 125% of the mortgage payment at the initial product rate, making it easier to pass affordability checks on lower-yielding properties. Crucially, they are also perfectly happy to accept applications from first-time landlords.

Eligibility criteria

Criteria may vary depending on the type of mortgage you are applying for, but for general residential borrowers, Furness Building Society has the following eligibility requirements:

• Deposit needed: Furness has a handful of options available for borrowers with 5% deposit (95% LTV) but product choice increases at 10% deposit plus.
• Credit history: Bad credit mortgages are available for borrowers with most minor to moderate types of adverse, but serious issues like bankruptcies and individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) need to have been satisfied for eight years.
• Age: The maximum age applicants can be is 79-80 at the end of the term.
• Employment: Self-employed applicants and contractors need to have been trading this way for at least two years, while full-time employees only need to have been in their current job for one month.
• Property type: Furness won’t offer a mortgage on certain types of non-standard construction - such as concrete and cornish construction - and also won’t lend on ex-local authority properties. The LTV is capped at 75% on new build flats. 

What mortgage rates are available?

The mortgage rates available from Furness Building Society are competitive with other mutuals and lower than some high street and specialist lenders.

The exact rate you end up with will depend on the amout of deposit you have, the overall strength of your application and the type of product you choose.

How much will they let you borrow?

Furness Building Society will let you borrow up to 4.5 times your annual salary on a residential mortgage and uses the same income multiple for joint residential mortgage applications.

Buy-to-let landlords need to have personal income of at least £20,000 to get approved for a mortgage and can borrow up to 80% of the purchase price, subject to providing a satisfactory rental income projection on top of this.

You can get an idea of how much you can borrow based on their income multiple, and compare it to the higher multiples used by other lenders, by entering your household income into the calculator below:

Pros, Cons and Customer Reviews

Below we have rounded up the pros and cons of Furness as a mortgage lender, summarised the review consensus among customers and offer our own expert insight into their product range.

Pros and cons

The table below highlights to pros and cons of Furness Building Society as a mortgage lender to help you decide whether they are the right choice for you:

Customer Review Consensus

As a regional mutual, Furness Building Society punches above its weight in customer satisfaction, holding a solid 4 out of 5 ("Great") rating on Trustpilot. Unlike massive high-street banks, their smaller scale allows them to deliver a highly personalized service.

• What Borrowers Praise: Customers consistently highlight the friendly, accessible nature of the staff and the sheer relief of speaking directly to an underwriter who applies common sense to a complex application. Furthermore, many borrowers express pleasant surprise at the quality of their digital portal and app - an area where many smaller regional building societies often lag behind.

• Common Grievances: While mortgage application feedback is overwhelmingly positive, the main frustrations aimed at Furness usually stem from administrative delays on the savings side of the business. Some customers report slower-than-expected funds transfers upon account maturity or rigid internal processes regarding probate and bereavement handling. For mortgage borrowers, the primary downside is simply that their highly manual, human-led underwriting process can occasionally result in slightly longer application-to-offer times compared to the automated, instant-decision systems of massive high-street lenders.

Our Expert Says...

Speak to our brokers about Furness Building Society mortgages

Our brokers can compare mortgage rates from Furness with their competitors for you, but if you’re unsure whether they are the right lender for you, they can help with that too. They know the lender’s product range well and can advise you on how well they fit your requirements.

Here are a few of the reasons why you should speak to use before you go direct to a lender:

• We will compare Furness' rates with 90+ other lenders for you
• Our mortgage brokers can access exclusive deals
• We are 5-star rated on leading review websites
• You can secure an agreement in principle in minutes

Ready to get a comparison of Furness Building Society's mortgage rates and speak to a broker about their range of products? Get started here.