Property Ladder fever sets in as buy-to-let rockets
Published On 14 February 2007
The number of people trying to emulate the successes seen on Sarah Beeny's Property Ladder programme has rocketed with new figures showing the buy-to-let market is larger than ever. Data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) found a total of 330,000 buy-to-let mortgages were taken out in 2006, which amounted to around £38.4 billion in all.
These figures represent a 48 per cent increase in volume and a 57 per cent increase in value when compared to the 2005 data.
Michael Coogan, CML director general, said: "The buy-to-let market has performed even more strongly than the wider market over the course of 2006.
"With evidence from other sources of strong tenant demand, rising rents and falling void periods, buy-to-let looks set to continue to remain popular and successful."
During the second half of 2006, buy-to-let lending hit around £21 billion in the UK, which equates to around 178,000 loans in total.
At the end of 2006, buy-to-let lending represented around nine per cent of all mortgage balances compared to eight per cent at the end of 2005.
