The number of landlords choosing to remortgage their investment properties has fallen to its lowest level in two years according to a survey by Paragon Mortgages.
The survey Paragon carried out revealed that only 39 percent of landlords chose to take out a remortgage in the third quarter of this year. Combined with this is the fact that the borrowing of money for portfolio extension purposes is at its highest level since 2001. Figures indicate this is now 48 percent.
John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages, said:
“Landlords are not remortgaging for two reasons – they cannot because of the low number of mortgages available, and there is little incentive to do so because the reversion rates when coming off an introductory deal are so attractive due to the low Bank of England base rate and Libor.”
“We have not experienced the massive sell off of buy-to-let property during the recession that some were predicting, but buying activity has been subdued. As house prices have stabilised, landlords now obviously believe that it is a good time to start expanding before house price inflation starts up again.”
This is good news but a note of caution is clearly being sounded of the lack of availability of buy to let loan products available in the market at the moment. This really does continue to be of grave concern.
