Magellan Homeloans has reported an increase of over 55% in visitors to its website between October 2018 and February 2019.

Last month was the second record month in a row for visits for the specialist lender.

Simon Read, Magellan’s managing director, said: “We’ve had an extremely busy few months launching our unique online buy-to-let calculator; cutting rates on our residential mortgages and launching our new range of Prime mortgages plus most recently, developing the functionality of our residential affordability calculator to the same level as the buy-to-let calculator.

“Whilst we would expect new products and changes to drive interest, we’ve been delighted at the level of increase in visitors and specifically to our online calculators.”

Magellan claims the enhanced functionality makes it easier and more straightforward for brokers to obtain an accurate view of how much their client can borrow, in advance of submitting a DIP through Magellan’s online application system.

The updated calculator requires minimal loan and income information to be input to obtain an immediate summary of the maximum loan available across Magellan’s entire product range.

Additionally, if a borrowers’ profile is more complex, for example they are self-employed or have variable income that needs to be taken into consideration, then the calculator also allows those details to be added to the equation, increasing accuracy further.

Read added: “We know from broker’s feedback and seeing over 40% increase in use, that our simplified calculators make it easier for brokers to do business with us. Extending this functionality to our Residential model was a natural next-step and since its introduction, we are already seeing a huge uptake in brokers using it. In fact, it’s already become the most visited page on our website.”