I welcome the actions the government and the Bank of England are taking.
For years the buy-to-let industry has delivered incomplete, inaccurate and biased data to support its cause. This is presumably why the authorities have decided to develop their own reports. No doubt these will improve in accuracy over time.
Arguments around increasingly large cohorts of tenants that ‘choose to rent’ are disingenuous. Most would prefer to buy and reining in the private rental sector will facilitate this by releasing rental properties back into homeownership.
Incorporating second charge arrears into the overall figures is probably a good idea, or would Paragon be willing to lend to a landlord who was racking up second charge arrears but hadn’t defaulted on their mortgages (quite yet)?
It is clear that we have been experiencing a buy-to-let bubble which has occurred without a robust assessment of the long-term impact on the taxpayer, in terms of an exponential increase in housing benefit when generation rent retires.
My suggestion to Paragon is to get into first-time buyer lending fast.
