Landbay, the buy-to-let lender, has reflected on the UK BTL property market in 2021 and how demand has outstripped supply. Writing in an article, Paul Brett, managing director of intermediaries, pointed towards the stamp duty holiday as the catalyst behind rising house prices.
In response to this, landlords have taken advantage of remortgaging products in order to release equity and purchase more property, often expanding their portfolios earlier than they had planned.
Paul Brett, managing director of intermediaries at Landbay, wrote: “As values increased landlords have been able to release more equity by remortgaging and using the money to fund a deposit on another property.
Even though landlords still had to pay the 3% stamp duty surcharge on additional properties, they were able to reduce their tax bill. We found landlords bringing forward their plans to increase the size of their portfolios.”
He continued: “Another new development for a few buy-to-let lenders, including ourselves, has been the introduction of green mortgages. We want to encourage landlords to buy and upgrade their properties to an EPC rating of A, B or C in return for a lower interest rate.
Launched in June, our green mortgage range is now accounting for around 10% of our new loans and has been very well received by intermediaries.”
Original article featured here…
Landbay recently repriced its limited edition range of five-year fixed rate BTL products; four of the five products in the range have been reduced by five basis points and the minimum loan value has been lowered to £200,000. The lender has also introduced a £500 cashback option for the range, which is payable upon completion.