Buy-to-let mortgage loans leaping

Buy-to-let landlords were granted £4.2bn in new mortgage lending in the first quarter, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said yesterday.

This was 13.5 per cent more than in the first quarter of 2012.

Almost half of this gross borrowing was for remortgaging, rather than new acquisitions.

Buy-to-let lending accounted for 13.4 per cent of all outstanding mortgages at the end of the quarter, according to the data, a record. The CML also said that home repossessions fell 17 per cent to 8,000 in the first quarter.