The Ipswich Building Society has increased the upper lending cap on standard 75% loan to value (LTV) residential mortgage products and its 80% LTV self build product from £500,000 to £750,000.

The mutual said the move was made to reflect changes in the UK housing market.

The new higher maximum loan size will be applicable across all existing standard 75% LTV residential and later life products, and the current 80% LTV self build product.

All other existing criteria for these products will remain unchanged, and applications will continue to be manually underwritten.

The Society’s remaining product range will continue to have a maximum loan size of £500,000 unless otherwise stated.

For buyers requiring a mortgage over £500,000 up to £750,000 but with a higher LTV, the Society’s existing specialist ‘large loan’ range will continue to be available and offer a higher LTV allowance of up to 90%.

Richard Norrington, CEO at Ipswich Building Society, said: “We recognise that the UK housing market is changing: as well as a general upwards trend in house prices, we’ve seen some buyers missing out several rungs on the property ladder and going straight from a starter home to a much larger or ‘forever’ home.

“This probably reflects the fact that people are buying their first property later in life but then quickly requiring greater space for a growing family.

“By increasing the maximum loan size across our standard products, we hope to be able to support these ‘leapfrog buyers’ as well as others who need to access larger mortgages to reflect house price growth in their area.”