"With the rental market currently booming, some landlords are looking to diversify their portfolios."
Landbay is lowering the minimum property value on its core products to £65,000 from £75,000. For properties above commercial units, Landbay is increasing the LTV to 75%, up from 70%.
Landbay is also increasing the maximum loan size for its special edition range to £1.5m, up from £1m.
In addition, the recently launched non-portfolio landlord five-year fixed rate products have been reduced to 3.39%, down five basis points.
Pepper Money has reduced minimum income requirements and introduced a new limited edition product.
The newly released limited edition Pepper 60 product is suitable for customers who haven’t had a CCJ, secured missed payment or default in the last 60 months. The mortgage is available up to 75% LTV with a five-year fixed rate at 3.18%.
In addition, Pepper has reduced the minimum income requirement for individuals buying in their own name from £30,000 to £18,000. The minimum income for limited companies remains at £30,000.
The specialist lender has increased the maximum available LTV on its Pepper 36 and Pepper 36 Light buy-to-let mortgages to 80%. It has also introduced a new five-year fixed rate at 4.65% on Pepper 24 Light.
Paul Brett, managing director of intermediaries at Landbay, commented: “With the rental market currently booming, some landlords are looking to diversify their portfolios. We have been seeing southern based landlords venturing further afield and buying less expensive properties in the north as the yields are higher.
“With the pandemic showing remote working can be effective, we may see more landlords looking to invest in properties away from their local area. The added flexibility in our range will support this expansion, and combined with our efficient service and turnaround times, we have an unrivalled offering that suits all client needs.”
Paul Adams, sales director at Pepper Money, said: “Buy-to-let is a big opportunity for advisers this year, with ongoing demand from investors purchasing new properties and a wave of potential remortgage business as thousands of five-year fixed rates come to an end. At Pepper Money, we wanted to make it easier for advisers to make the most of this opportunity and so we’ve made a number of important enhancements to our buy-to-let range which is available both to individuals and limited companies.
"As well as increasing the maximum LTV to 80% on Pepper 36 and introducing one of our lowest ever rates on our limited edition product, we are also lowering the minimum income requirement to make the range more accessible to customers who earn much of their income through buy-to-let. On top of this, we don’t use credit scoring to make decisions on any of our buy-to-let mortgages and continue to support all applications with up to date service levels.”
