Landlords are keeping up the demand for mortgage and remortgage lending in an effort to add to their portfolios and their business bottom-line.  Renters are in abundant supply for a landlord looking to fill a vacancy.  Without the ability to obtain a high deposit households are forced into renting while others are choosing to stay away from mortgage debt as house prices fall.  In a recent survey of landlords by CHL Mortgages of those responding 72 per cent were positive about the future business of buy to let.  This is up from the 67 per cent that responded the same a year ago.  There were also 35 per cent that responded they would be adding to their portfolios within the next 12 months.

Bob Young, Managing Director at CHL Mortgages, remarked, “We normally only conduct our Landlord Survey every year however with this extra iteration we wanted to gauge whether the growing positivity we had witnessed during the summer had increased just three months later.

"The research reveals that buy-to-let landlords are increasingly bullish about the state of the sector and their place in it.

"More landlords are looking to acquire new properties if they can square the circle of finding available finance and meeting the higher deposits that are required by lenders.

"This positivity is clearly fuelled by a growing demand for private rental properties from tenants and a significant improvement in the rental yields available.

“Rental income levels are improving as witnessed by the large numbers (88%) who now say they can cover all related outgoings with the rental payment.  This figure has never been higher since we started the Landlord Survey.

"Interestingly, landlords do not seem overly concerned by any future interest rate rises that may be coming with many suggesting they would either subsidise the mortgage themselves (15%) or increase the rents (31%) to cover an increase.

"Also, it is clear that the vast majority of landlords are comfortable with their tracker rate products at present and would not be tempted to move to a fix at this time.

“All in all, it is possible to see from our results why the expectation is for a growing buy-to-let market in the short-term and beyond.  2011 has seen a number of new and old lenders moving into the market and this is likely to continue through 2012.

"There is clearly an appetite to add to portfolios amongst the landlord community and it is therefore hard to envisage the demand for buy-to-let finance dropping off any time soon.”