How landlords can find the best BTL mortgage deal?
The good news for landlords is that the U.K. has one of the most competitive and flexible mortgage markets in the world. The downside for landlords is that finding a buy-to-let mortgage even using the Internet can be confusing and extremely time consuming.
Most landlords choose one of three routes to finding a buy-to-let mortgage. They either:
Property Hawk’s BTL mortgage section enables landlords to do all three. We aim to present landlords with ALL the choices and information about how to get a buy-to-let mortgage. The rest is down to YOU as the landlord to decide on how you want to find the buy-to-let mortgage that best suits your needs.
Going direct
Going direct for a landlord involves using one of the many BTL mortgage providers.
These include household names such as Bradford & Bingley, Natwest; specialist lenders such as Salt & Wave as well as smaller local lenders such as the Stafford Railway Building Society & Progressive Building Society.
Landlords can use Property Hawks unique Provider Directory to see ALL the mortgage providers and then go direct to their website & see their full range of buy-to-let mortgage products.
The good thing about going direct to providers is that the landlord does not have to pay a mortgage brokers fee. The downside for landlords going down this route is that they will only get a more limited choice of buy-to-let mortgages.
Using a mortgage broker
The most popular route for a landlord to find a buy-to-let mortgage is by using a mortgage broker .
Mortgage brokers,sometimes known as mortgage intermediaries are a way for landlords to access quickly, far more products than they would if they tried to obtain a buy-to-let mortgage on their own. This is because many BTL mortgage lenders will only provide their BTL mortgage products through a Financial Services Authority (FSA) approved broker.
Although buy-to-let mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), they are still covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). This means that by going through a BTL mortgage broker and receiving advice, a landlord still has a degree of protection against taking the wrong product or a bad deal, as opposed to none if a landlord goes it alone. Complaints against brokers are independently reviewed by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), using the principles of Treating Customers Fairly, which cover such things as the way that a deal was marketed to you the landlord, whether you received sufficient information to make an informed decision, whether you were aware of all of the costs involved in the transaction and so on.
Most BTL mortgage brokers also have access to sophisticated sourcing software, which can quickly eliminate deals for which a landlords\' case would be ineligible, or can isolate specific deals tailored to a landlords exact requirements. Many have access to exclusive products or rates that they have been able to negotiate by being members of larger networks of brokers or mortgage clubs who use their volume business to give them buying power. They will also see a mortgage through from start to finish, saving a landlord time and hassle, as they will chase the lenders, valuers and solicitors on a landlords behalf.
Some BTL mortgage brokers are useful because they enable access to specialist mortgage products enabling a landlord to obtain buy-to-let finance on properties or in circumstances that many BTL lenders would not be prepared to lend.
Landlords searching independently through the Internet
Many landlords start their search for a buy-to-let mortgage by going to the Internet. This probably means a landlord putting some search term like ‘buy-to-let mortgage’ into their chosen search engine such as Google.
The problem for landlords using general search engines to find the best buy-to-let mortgage deal is that a landlord is likely to end up with a ‘mish mash’ of mortgage broking websites, individual buy-to-let mortgage companies and so called sponsored links.
Sponsored links are adverts placed there by the search engine partly because the originator of the link, like a buy-to-let mortgage broker is prepared to pay and partly because they are relevant to the term the landlord has just searched on.
The upshot of all this is that whilst the Internet potentially allows a landlord to search in an unbiased independent way for a BTL mortgage. The reality is that the landlord ends up with a huge mixture of links & websites which they have to trawl through before finding something what they were originally looking for.
This is why Property Hawk has spent so much time ordering our information and links to ensure that landlords get the information that they need. One of the things that we have done is identify and then evaluate some of the leading buy-to-let mortgage sites to help landlords decide on which websites to use. This should save landlords time and effort in finding a buy-to-let mortgage.
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