Rental market 'coping better' with credit crunch - buy to let mortgages

27 August 2008

Buy to let mortgages are faring better than other sectors of the market in the economic slowdown, according to new figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).

While there has been an 18 per cent decline in buy to let products, this is lower than the drop suffered by the wider market which stood at 28 per cent.

The figures, which are for the first half of this year, also show that the number of buy to let mortgages in arrears is 0.22 per cent lower than the market as a whole.

CML director general Michael Coogan said: "We expect the rental market to remain underpinned by strong demand, partly because some people who would like to buy a home are being forced to carry on renting for now."
A quarter of estate agents recently claimed a sale had fallen through as a direct result of the debate about the possibility of stamp duty being scrapped, in a report conducted by the National Association of Estate Agents.