The ceiling on what a first time buyer can borrow moved this week. On 1 September 2026 Coventry Building Society opened lending of up to 6.5 times income to first time buyers at up to 95% loan to value, which is a 5% deposit. Until then the highest income multiple we found at that deposit level was six times income, from Nationwide. None of these are products a landlord can buy with. They matter because they change who can afford to bid for your flat.
What 6.5 times income requires
The conditions are on Coventry’s own intermediary page. Up to 6.5 times income, up to 95% loan to value, with a minimum income of £30,000 for a sole applicant or £50,000 combined, and no applicant can be self employed. It is distributed through brokers rather than direct, so a buyer reaches it through an adviser.
The multiple is a maximum, not an entitlement. Affordability checks still run underneath it, so a buyer who qualifies on the income floor does not automatically get 6.5 times anything. Treat it as a raised ceiling for the strongest applicants rather than a new normal.
Where first time buyer income multiples sit
Coventry is not the only route. Nationwide’s Helping Hand lends first time buyers up to six times income, at up to 95% loan to value on a five-year fixed rate, and at a lower loan to value on a ten-year fix. Its October 2025 release reported around 23,000 first time buyers using it in the year to September 2025, up from about 15,000. Nationwide cut its minimum incomes to £30,000 and £50,000 in July 2025, citing a Prudential Regulation Authority announcement letting lenders do more high loan to income business.
HSBC’s borrowing page shows how conditional these numbers are. Its own first time buyer tier is up to 5.5 times income at a maximum 90% loan to value, needing £35,000 sole or £55,000 joint. HSBC does publish 6.5 times, but for Premier customers at up to 90% loan to value, which is an account tier with its own qualifying tests and a 10% deposit.
So the same headline number means different things at different lenders. Coventry pairs 6.5 times with a 5% deposit. HSBC pairs it with a 10% deposit and a different customer entirely. A multiple quoted without its deposit, its income floor and its distribution route tells you very little.
The 15% cap has not moved
None of this is a rule change. Lenders work inside a regulatory limit on high loan to income lending, where high means 4.5 times income or above. The Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority published a consultation on that limit on 1 April 2026, proposing to remove the individual firm cap while keeping a 15% aggregate ceiling across the market.
That consultation closed on 1 July 2026. It is a proposal, not law. No final rule is in force, implementation is expected in the second half of 2026, and interim measures run to 31 December 2026. What has changed is not the rule but how lenders are using headroom they already had, which is exactly what Nationwide said when it cut its income floors.
One figure from that consultation is worth keeping. First time buyers accounted for 54% of all high loan to income lending in the second quarter of 2025. The stretch is concentrated in the buyer group that competes with small landlords for small properties.
Who buys your ex-rental
Say the obvious thing first, because every number above is an owner occupier number. Buy to let sits at a different loan to value entirely. HSBC’s buy to let page caps borrowing at 75% loan to value, which is a 25% deposit against the first time buyer’s 5%, and wants rent covering 125% of a stressed payment for a basic rate taxpayer or 145% for a higher rate one. An investor and a first time buyer looking at the same flat are not bidding on the same terms, and this week only one of them moved.
Set that against general buyer borrowing power. As we covered in more searching, less borrowing power, a mainstream buyer on the same monthly payment can raise roughly 9% less than in January, on Zoopla’s own worked example. That is a residential figure rather than a buy to let one, and buy to let advances are set by the rent and a stressed rate rather than the pay rate.
The direction still matters. First time buyer ceilings rose this week while nothing equivalent happened for landlord borrowing. On a single flat or terrace under about £300,000, an owner occupier stretching to 6.5 times income can outbid an investor pricing the same property on yield.
The counter is fair. The 6.5 times route needs an income floor, an employed applicant, a broker and a successful affordability assessment, so it is a route rather than a market. Larger properties and tenanted stock still sell to investors. The point is narrower. On small lettable stock the owner occupier got stronger this week, and the investor did not.
What this means for property investors
Check which buyer your property is actually priced for. If it sits in owner occupier territory, test the asking price against what a first time buyer can now raise rather than against a yield alone. On a £50,000 joint income, 6.5 times is £325,000 where six times was £300,000 and a standard 4.5 times was £225,000.
If you are selling, treat condition, energy rating and vacant possession as pricing decisions rather than presentation. An owner occupier is buying a home, and those things move their number more than they move an investor’s. If you are buying small stock, expect competition from outside the investor market and price accordingly.
Read lender headlines as product marketing, not market conditions. This week’s number is real, but it belongs to one lender, through brokers, for employed applicants over an income floor.
BlackBook Investments is a property brokerage, not a mortgage, tax or investment adviser. Nothing here is a recommendation on any product or on your position, and every criterion quoted is the lender’s published position on the date shown. Take regulated advice before acting.
If you want to know what your property is worth to the buyer most likely to pay for it, start with our free property valuation, or see the current off-market listings if you are buying.