Competition in buy to let market increases – 14 April 2011

Welcome to MFB-TV on Thursday 14th April. Tuesday’s inflation figures of four per cent, down from 4.4 per cent, now places a quandary on the MPC in the next Base Rate announcement at the beginning of May. The perceived wisdom is that now, that Base Rate won’t move until July at the earliest and indeed, some people are saying that it won’t move at all given the economic uncertainty around the world. Therefore, it makes good sense for you to read the latest edition of FirstRate which is available under the news section of our website, where we put forward a range of views on both fixed and variable rate mortgages for both the buy to let, residential investment and commercial investment sectors. Elsewhere, Aldermore Bank has responded to the launch of Whiteaway Laidlaw Bank by improving their stress tests which effectively means you will be able to borrow more money on your residential investment properties than was hitherto the case. Inevitably there will be some pricing competition between these two lenders and Paragon in the coming weeks. And finally, log back into our site, as we will be launching two new online products both with flat fees and this will work particularly well for those of you who are looking to borrow more than £150,000 up to £700,000 or £800,000 on good-yielding, standard properties. We’ll put more details up on Monday but do look out for it on our news wires as well.