The buy-to-let (BTL) market has recently reached its 10-year anniversary, and how the market has changed.
Over the past decade the BTL market has grown beyond all comprehension, fuelled by changes to peoples living conditions and choices, in addition to ever increasing house prices.
Launched with average product rates of 8.7 per cent, the product criteria of BTL products now mirrors that of normal, conventional prime mortgages.
The market is also ever evolving, in an effort to keep up with demand and increased competition between lenders in the market as borrower interest continues to climb, both from new property investors, and those keen to add to their portfolios. A host of new lenders have realised the opportunities the BTL market provides, while intermediaries are also waking up to the benefits offering a BTL advice service can provide. Some intermediaries have conformed they now offer a BTL only policy, realising the potential and opportunities available in the growing market.
With the market having experienced a period of such drastic growth, a few ‘doom mongers’ as many in the industry have dubbed them, have predicted the bursting of the buy-to-let bubble. But as Bob Stanworth, senior product manager at Bristol & West Mortgages argues on page nine, the future of the market appears bright.
With Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) figures indicating the buy-to-let market accounts for 8 per cent of all mortgage lending, it seems the sector is here to stay, and the question of growth is not in doubt – merely how rapid and sustained the growth will be
