The buy-to-let boom goes bust
The first signs of a collapse in Britain's buy-to-let property market emerged yesterday as Bradford & Bingley, the UK's largest lender to private landlords, revealed a 50 per cent jump in arrears on its mortgage book over the first four months of the year. B&B, which represents 20 per cent of lending across the British buy-to-let sector, said the number of landlords who were three or more months behind on their mortgage payments had leapt by more than 52 per cent between January and the end of April, to more than 1.5 per cent of its total buy-to-let customer base. The picture was much worse within one of its books of business - which it acquired from the US lender GMAC-RFC in 2005 - where buy-to-let arrears were up almost 80 per cent to 3.5 per cent of the total.
Source : John Watson, 03 Jun 2008