As Paragon drops the Mortgage Trust brand to umbrella its mortgage lending under Paragon Mortgages, John Heron, managing director – mortgages at Paragon said he expects to see £35bn of buy-to-let mortgage lending overall this year.
Heron said the drop from £41bn last year showed a step change in landlord activity and he expected the market to be softer going forward.
“Landlords are buying fewer properties and the market has turned to a one third purchase and two-thirds remortgage,” he said, adding that the slack in the market has been closed by professional investors.
Heron said although next steps are still unclear, he said the government has not been persuaded yet that the conduct and business around buy to let is adequate. He suspects there could be a thematic assessment of the market early next year followed by a conduct and business regulation consultation.
Relaunch
The complex and specialist buy-to-let and residential mortgage lender has also relaunched its website.
Paragon gained its UK banking licence in 2014 and has more than £12bn of assets under management and after launching savings, asset finance, motor finance, residential development finance and structured finance product lines.
Paragon’s residential mortgage products will also adopt the new Paragon brand.
“The wider brand alignment across buy-to-let and residential mortgages as well as the broader Paragon product range combines all our specialist finance expertise under one banner, giving all our customers and intermediary partners a clearer picture of who we are and all that we offer,” the lender said.
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.
