Another (very) big surge in buy to let lending

Latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show there were 18,200 buy to let loans in March - up 12 per cent on the previous month and up a whopping 21 per cent compared to March 2014. 

These loans were worth £2.7 billion, up 13 per cent compared to February and up by no less than 35 per cent on March 2014.

Looking at the first three months of 2015 in total, there were 52,300 buy to let loans advanced in the first quarter - this is actually three per cent down on the final quarter of 2014 but up by 15 per cent on the first quarter of 2014. 

The three months of loans at the start of 2015 were worth £7.8 billion in value - that’s a huge 28 per cent higher than in the first quarter of 2014.

Buy to let lending has made up almost a fifth of total gross lending in the UK, which was the highest proportion of total lending since quarterly records began in mid-2006. 

This was mainly driven by both a fall in remortgage and house purchase loans to home-owners activity in this period. 

"It was a slow start to activity in the first couple of months of 2015 but the market started to get out of the dip in March, a trend that we think will continue as the year goes on. We will have to wait and see how the housing market reacts to the general election result and the reduction in the risk of a prolonged period of market uncertainty which could well have been damaging to businesses and the housing market” says Paul Smee, director general of the CML.