David Finlay, intermediary channel director at Barclays, confirmed that the lender aims to increase buy to let to a minimum of 10% of the lender’s mortgage business, with a focus on professional landlords.
He said: “Buy to let used to be a significant part of our business and then we stepped back from it. We now plan to step back into buy to let and quadruple our business.”
He told Mortgage Solutions at the Mortgage Intelligence conference in Newport: “It will be a gradual process starting now over the next 12 months. We have started to build the funding and physical resources necessary to deliver this.”
Finlay was unable to confirm the level of gross mortgage lending Barclays currently does in buy to let, because the lender encompasses buy to let within its figures for other mortgage lending.
But, buy to let currently accounts for a “relatively small, single digit” proportion of Barclays’ mortgage business and this should increase to double digits.
Finlay said: “We have had conversations with key buy-to-let distributors asking where the opportunities are and where we should be looking for untapped potential.
“We are more focused on the professional landlord arena, but we will never say no to anyone with a good proposition.”
