BTL remortgages rocket despite fall in transaction volumes
THE VOLUME of buy-to-let (BTL) remortgages has risen by almost a third over the last quarter, according to new research from LendInvest.
The online mortgage lender’s latest Buy-to-Let Index report showed that overall transaction volume growth has slowed by as much as minus 6.77 per cent on average across the UK.
However, BTL remortgages bucked the trend increasing in volume by 32.4 per cent.
“Each of the very top performing BTL locations this quarter is experiencing a slowdown in transactions – substantial falls in places, dips in others,’ said Ian Boden, sales director at LendInvest.
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“But, the best places this quarter continue to outperform the competition well thanks to strong performances on other, equally important metrics like rental yield, capital gains and rental price growth.
“Data from the BTL Index, UK Finance and our own experience as a mortgage lender strongly suggests that right now a ‘buy, hold and remortgage’ strategy is some investors’ preference while the market works through a possible slowdown.”
Published quarterly, the LendInvest BTL Index ranks postcode areas based on capital value growth, transaction volumes, rental yield and rental price growth.
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The Bedfordshire town of Luton has reclaimed top spot for the third time since December 2016.
It is followed by Birmingham in fourth place and Manchester in fifth while South East London jumped 46 places to number 33.
“It’d be so easy to look at the underlying data that tells us transaction volumes are down and make dire predictions about the health and wealth of the rental market,” said Boden.
“Instead, what our index proves once again is that looking at one metric in the housing market is never enough.
“One metric on its own can’t clearly define the performance of a city’s property market.”
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