'Pressure' on banks to boost mortgage finance

Banks need to do more to ensure that buy-to-let mortgage finance is easier to obtain.

This is the suggestion from MyMortgageDirect, which believes that banks should make borrowing easier, something that would be welcomed by residential landlords.

Catherine Hearnden, the organisation's managing director, said that there are improved loan to value deals coming out but that people are remaining realistic about what they can afford.

"There is pressure on the banks to lend and we think that they have to do it," she commented

Miss Hearnden was speaking after the publication of figures by the British Bankers Association, which revealed that high street banks approved 35,000 mortgages in January.

This was a decline from December's total of 46,000, although experts have suggested that the poor weather and the fact that it was the post Christmas period have contributed to the decline.

Separate figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed that the total value of January's new mortgages amounted to £9.1 billion, a fall from December's total of £13.4 billion.

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