Submitted on Friday 15th May 2009
Where have all the B2L lenders gone?
The latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders shows that buy-to-let lending accounted for just 6% of gross mortgage lending in the first three months of the year, compared with 12% a year earlier.
The main decline in B2L schemes is because specialist lenders relied on the money markets and or securitisation to run their lending models and at the moment these models no longer work. Therefore the only B2L lenders that are active are deposit taking banks and building socities and their subsidaries many of whom have government assistance. Former stalwarts such as Capital Home Loans and Paragon have stopped lending long ago, and Mortgage Express had to be bailed out.
AS the B2L sector is still popular and there are bargains available this is a vacuum that lenders will surely be looking to fill
