What we’re seeing in the market at present, is that lender appetite remains high for buy-to-let.
It seems that although there were changes to stamp duty in the recent past, buy-to-let demand remains constant. For example, the Q2 Pegasus Insight Landlord Trends Report suggests that 60% of landlords looking to buy a property in the next 12 months will rely on a buy to let mortgage. Interestingly, 66% of landlords have worked with a broker for their most recent buy to let mortgage, which shows the need for an intermediary in a now more complex lending world. The report also highlights that 84% of landlords own 10 or fewer properties – so those with a smaller portfolio are a vital part of the market that rely on broker expertise.
Not only are we at Fowler Smith Mortgages & Protection finding that enquiries for buy to let remain high, but we’re also finding that lenders are often diversifying and tweaking criteria to get more buy to let business. This, in my opinion, is a great thing to see, as lenders opening up appetite greatly helps the market continue to grow and grow with pace. It also applies pressure to other lenders to start considering where to better their own proposition, too. We’ve seen it where some buy to let lenders allow intercompany loans as a deposit (i.e. one of the applicant’s companies lends the deposit monies to their property company) and where this became more popular, we started to see other lenders adopt this into their criteria and make it acceptable.
It’s great to see the forward-thinking nature of lenders at the moment, to continue to allow such a vital part of our industry and the property market as a whole to continue to drive forwards.
As a firm, we saw a 40.81% uplift in new and completed business on average in our third financial quarter (June, July, August) in comparison to our 2nd quarter. It’s great to see demand remaining strong with clients enquiring and purchasing new property. We also see a lot of new build buy to let being popular, as it often is, with investors based here in the UK and overseas. I often hear about rent demand continuing to increase, and Rightmove evidenced that rents have ‘reached another new record’ with tenants paying ‘£400 more than five years ago’. Their Q2 2025 report evidences that rents have increased by 3.9% in Q2 2025 compared to the year prior. They also share statistics from UK Finance, who shares that there’s been a 17% increase in total loans to property investors and a 28% uplift for new rental home purchases.
Their report also highlights the yields, with the average yield being the highest in the North East, at 8.1%, and the lowest being in London at 5.7%. Either way, every region looked at has seen a year on year uplift.
I’m pleased to see that appetite for buy to let lending remains high by investors and lenders alike, and as a firm we’re looking forward to continuing to support landlords looking to either grow their portfolios, or purchase their first investment property.
