News
Buy-to-let products double in a year
The number of buy-to-let products available to market has more than doubled over the last year, research has shown.
Mortgages For Business revealed that around 300 products were available to buy-to-let investors in Q1 2011, compared with same period of the year before when there was just over 140 products on the market.
The brokerage said that this is partly down to the entrance and re-entrance of mortgage lenders in the market, including Aldermore and Precise Mortgages.
It added that high demand from the investor market and an easing of lending criteria has also helped boost demand in the number of products available.
The average LTV for vanilla buy-to-let transactions was around 66%, up from 63% at the end of 2010.
David Whittaker, managing director at Mortgages for Business, said: “Unprecedented demand from renters is encouraging professional landlords and investors to grow their portfolios and this demand has been met to some degree by lenders expanding its buy-to-let ranges, particularly in the vanilla section of the market.”
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Whittaker added that there has been an easing of criteria for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) transactions. Average LTVs for these mortgages are 63% compared to 61% at the end of 2010.
“House of multiple occupancy and multi-unit freehold deals can offer yields of nearly 10% which is a staggering return on investment when compared to the meagre returns offered by savings and investment funds,” he said.