LTVs on the up for Landlords

Britons looking to become landlords can do so with an increasingly minimal outlay thanks to changing trends in lending, a new report has shown. More than ten different lenders have increased the maximum loan-to-value (LTV) they offer on buy-to-let mortgages to 90 per cent since last June. Whereas the average LTV five years ago was 74.5 per cent for first-time buyers and just under 77.8 per cent for both second-time buyers and remortgagers, according to a study, it is now typically around 81 per cent. However, it has been warned that it is often the case that a product with a higher LTV will be priced more expensively than it would be for a proportionately smaller loan sum. Therefore potential landlords are urged not to be taken in by the allure of a high LTV rate when there is such a wide range of good value mortgages available in this sector for them to choose from.