Message from NatWest

The Buy-to-Let mortgage market has grown significantly over the last six years accounting for 5% of all UK gross lending in 2009 to 15% in 2015. It is the fastest growing segment of the mortgage market in the UK.

Over the last 18 months, we have made improvements to our Buy-to-Let offering to grow our presence in this sector. Having enjoyed great success and increased our lending, we are now confident that we can significantly grow our Buy-to-Let business into areas of the market where we hadn’t previously operated.

Recently, we introduced even more changes to our Buy-to-Let criteria that will significantly widen the appeal our Buy-to-Let mortgages will have for brokers and their customers.

Whereas before, our target market was ‘non-professional’ landlords, we have removed previous restrictions to enable more landlords to apply for our range of Buy-to-Let mortgages.

We will now consider applications from customers who derive more than 30% of their income from rental properties and have removed the maximum loan limit of £500,000.

In addition, we accept applications from first-time landlords – subject to required rental coverage and affordability, proof of income will be required – and non-residential mortgage holders

We also have a straightforward rental cover calculation for all applications of 125% x 5.5%.

All of this combined with the recent rate cuts we made across our portfolio, means we have a really strong proposition for mortgage intermediaries who are serious about this market.