The original buy-to-let scheme was promoted by eight lenders. Current lenders associated with the original ARLA scheme include Birmingham Midshires, GMAC, Natwest Mortgage Services, Paragon Mortgages and Standard Life Bank.
Since 1996 many mainstream lenders have seen the immense potential of buy-to-let. Although not officially part of the original ARLA promoted scheme, they offer a similar product. The colloquial term “buy-to-let” now covers all these products, regardless of whether the lender was one of the original instigators or not.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis several big name lenders, Including Mortgage Express and Capital Home Loans, and numerous smaller lenders, pulled out of buy to let either short-term or permanently. The buy to let lending market has been steadily recovering over the last few years and there are now many lenders offering “buy-to-let” type financial products in the UK.
This includes big name lenders such as Birmingham Midshires, The Mortgage Works (part of Nationwide) and Paragon.
Also several smaller building societies like Kent Reliance, new lenders like Aldermore, and some unexpected lenders such as The Bank of China.