Buy-to-let sees signs of slight recovery

Buy-to-let landlords are slowly gaining more options in the way of available mortgages, new figures have revealed.

There are currently 239 buy-to-let products available to landlords, up from a low of 179 in September, according to online information provider Moneyfacts.

Despite the small increase, the number of available mortgages is still a long way off the 3,662 products available at the height of the market in August 2007.

The research also shows that landlords increasingly have to find larger deposits in order to secure home loans.

In August 2007 the majority of loans (52 per cent) were on a loan-to-value (LTV) rate of 85 per cent.

However, in today's market there are currently no 85 per cent deals being made and instead a sizeable proportion of transactions (30.6 per cent) are made at a LTV rate of 60 per cent.

Michelle Slade, a spokesperson for Moneyfacts, said a number of buy-to-let lenders had pulled out of the sector and many of those who remained were restricting the number of deals on offer, making it "harder than ever" for landlords to find a competitive mortgage.

"Many landlords' biggest problem in securing a competitive deal will be finding the deposit needed as previous house price falls are likely to have eaten into the equity available in their portfolio," she said.

"Buy-to-let lenders have continued to tighten criteria, restricting the size of portfolios that landlords can have, both in number of properties and maximum total advance."

Get a buy-to-let property insurance quote today from Simple Landlords Insurance.