Buy to let mortgage market 'has improved'

25 August 2010

Written by Jeni Browne

Britain's buy to let home loans market is showing signs of improvement, but has not yet completely recovered.

This is according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), which noted in its weekly newsletter that statistics showing a rise in buy to let mortgage lending are "welcome".

Earlier this month, the organisation revealed there were 24,900 deals of this kind approved in the second quarter of 2010, a 13 per cent rise on the preceding three-month period and a 15 per cent boost on the same timeframe last year.

However, the CML admitted that while the results were encouraging, there is still some way to go before lending reaches previous highs.

"Current levels of activity are only running at between one-quarter and one-third of the former heyday of buy to let in 2006 and 2007," it added.

Commenting at the time the data was released, director-general Michael Coogan claimed the buy to let market is making progress, albeit slowly.