The buy-to-let market is booming with loans up nearly 30% in a year and landlords revelling in a return of the feelgood factor, according to two new surveys.
New BTL lending hit £5 billion in Q2 2013, a 28% increase on the £3.9 billion advanced 12 months earlier, according to Bank of England figures published yesterday.
And the latest survey of buy-to-let landlords by Paragon Mortgages has shown a sharp rise in optimism over the last quarter to hit a three-year high.
Nearly four out of 10 landlords said they were feeling more optimistic about the prospects for their rental portfolios, according to the lender's Q3 Private Rented Trends survey.
That is a 30% rise on both Q1 and Q2, when three out of 10 landlords said they were optimistic.
Just 4% of those surveyed said that they were feeling pessimistic about the prospects for their property investments compared with three months ago, while for 56% there had been no change.
Professional landlords with more substantial property portfolios were more feeling more optimistic, 41% compared with 32% of private investor landlords.
John Heron, director of Mortgages, said: “This is the highest level of optimism we have seen in the last three years, which is in line with the improvements that we have seen elsewhere in the housing market.
“The CML published data last month which showed that there was £5.1 billion of buy-to-let advances in the second quarter. Recently there has been speculation about a possible boom in the buy-to-let market, but we are a long way off reaching lending levels of anywhere near those of 2007.
"So I think concerns about a booming market are overdone. What we are seeing is more progress in a recovering housing market in general.”
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