Landbay inks £300m-a-year funding line from asset manager

Landbay has agreed a new funding line with an asset manager, to help it meet the increasingly high demand for its buy-to-let mortgages ahead of the end of the stamp duty holiday.

Under the new deal, the unnamed asset manager will aim to fund in excess of £300m per year of Landbay-originated mortgages.

John Goodall, chief executive of Landbay, said that demand for the specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender’s products has hit a record high, as property investors look to make the most of the temporary tax changes.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak in July suspended stamp duty on homes costing up to £500,000 until 31 March 2021. The temporary change has also benefitted buy-to-let investors, as the tax savings also apply to landlords who expand their property portfolios or incorporate as a lettings business.

“The addition of an asset manager as one of our funding partners is a major step to further diversify the funding of our mortgage platform and makes us probably the most diversely funded buy-to-let lender in the UK,” said Goodall.

“This reinforces our ability to provide mortgages to a broad range of buy-to-let investors and their advisers. This is particularly important as we are only four months away from the end of the stamp duty holiday and demand for our buy-to-let mortgages is higher than we have ever seen it.”

This is the latest institutional investment unveiled by Landbay, following a bank funding deal announced in July and a £1bn funding line from an unnamed City investor in July 2019.

Landbay closed its platform to retail investors last December, effectively marking its exit from the peer-to-peer lending market. Goodall told Peer2Peer Finance News at the time that the firm had made a strategic decision to look at different funding sources and had found a backer to buy its retail loans sooner than expected.