Buy to let continues to bounce back
Thursday, 10 November 2011 2:41 PM
The recovery in buy to let continued into the third quarter of the year with banks making 16 per cent more loans to landlords.
Figures published today by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) show that banks made 34,500 loans in the three months to the end of September, up from 29,700 in the second quarter.
Of those, 18,580 were for house purchase rather than remortgage – an increase of 21 per cent. The total value of all buy-to-let loans rose 19 per cent to £3.2 billion.
Whether it's just by value or the number of loans, buy-to-let lending is now at its highest level since the end of 2008 – though still well short of the peak achieved before the credit crunch in 2007.
The number of buy-to-let loans more than three months in arrears fell slightly to 26,300 or 1.45 per cent of the total. However, the number of properties repossessed rose slightly to 1,600.
CML director general Paul Smee said: "With tenant demand remaining strong in the rental sector, some existing buy-to-let landlords have been expanding their portfolios and the growth that returned to the sector in the preceding quarter has continued.
"Despite recent improvements, however, buy-to-let lending volumes are still only around one-third of their former peaks."
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