Landlords Gear-Up For A Post-Lockdown Buying Surge
Growing numbers of landlords and property investors are gearing up for a post-Coronavirus lockdown buying surge to enjoy bargain property prices, research has revealed.
The findings from tech provider Twenty7Tec says that the volume of those conducting online mortgage searches grew by 15% in the week to 25th of April, compared with the week previously.
They say that buy to let mortgage searching is accounting for 25% of all mortgage enquiries and is up from an average of 19%.
The firm's chief executive, James Tucker, said: "Searches for buy to let mortgages continue to represent a large proportion of the mortgage market."
'Slight uptick for weekly BTL remortgage searches'
He said there has been a 'slight uptick for weekly BTL remortgage searches' which are up by 1% over the week before.
Compared with buy to let mortgage searches in March, the number of searches has fallen by 42%.
Mr Tucker added: "While volumes are considerably lower than late February's high times, the total volume for mortgage searches seems to be unaffected by an announcement that the lockdown could be in place for at least a further three weeks."
However, research from Mortgages for Business reveals that many landlords may struggle to find a mortgage lender with lenders leaving the market or tightening their BTL lending criteria.
Part of the issue is that lenders cannot carry out physical valuations of properties because of the Covid-19 restrictions.
Lenders still active in the UK's buy to let market
The research reveals that there are 42 lenders still active in the UK's buy to let market, which is down from the previous lockdown figure of 49.
The latest lender to stop all of their buy to let activity is HSBC and they have joined other lenders leaving the sector including Foundation Home Loans, Furness building society and Saffron building society.
Four of the buy to let lenders who withdrew their BTL mortgage products, Kent Reliance, Precise Mortgages, Clydesdale and Santander, are now lending to landlords once more.
The managing director of Mortgages for Business, Steve Olejnik, said: "While landlords looking to remortgage will have fewer options, there are still plenty available."
He points out that lenders are also declining some types of landlords that they will not lend to and are tightening lending criteria, pulling product ranges and increasing their margins.
He says that of those landlords that some BTL lenders are declining include first-time landlords.
He added: "My advice to landlords who want to remortgage is to act soon, rather than later and you may need to answer a few more questions when applying for a remortgage than you would have done last month."
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