Tenant demand rises as buy-to-let loans disappear

Permalink: Tenant demand rises as buy-to-let loans disappear
by Gill Montia

Price comparison website, moneysupermarket.com, has published research showing that the number of people in rented accommodation has risen by 5% since October of last year.

The surge in demand has been led by potential first-time buyers forced to delay their plans for property ownership by mortgage companies tightening their lending criteria and, most notably, raising deposit requirements in return for their best interest rates.

Eleven per cent of those questioned in moneysupermarket’s survey said they could no longer afford a mortgage or had been foiled by new high deposit requirements.

While the statistics should be encouraging to existing and potential landlords, this group of property investors is also afflicted by the demise of the UK mortgage market.

According to the website, 40% of buy-to-let mortgage products have disappeared in the past month.

Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com, explains that in the past 12 months the number of buy-to-let products has decreased from 4,025 to 674, with almost 600 loans removed since the end of March.

Ms Cuming warns that people are being forced into the buy-to-let market at a time when buy-to-let mortgages are becoming scarce, and that this could lead to a crisis in the UK housing sector.