There were 52,648 new buy-to-let (BTL) loans in the UK, valued at £9.6bn, according to UK Finance’s buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage market update for Q4 2024.
This represented a 39.2% increase by number and 47.2% by value compared to the same quarter last year.
The average gross rental yield was 7%, up from 6.74% in the previous year.
Additionally, the average interest rate for new buy-to-let loans was 5.09%, a decrease of 0.13 basis points from the previous quarter and 0.61 basis points lower than in Q4 2023.
The interest cover ratio rose to 201% from 190% in Q1 2024 and was 0.21% higher than the previous year.
Meanwhile, the number of fixed-rate buy-to-let mortgages increased to 1.43 million, up 4.4% over the year, while variable rate loans fell by 15.9% to 518,000.
There were 12,610 mortgages in arrears greater than 2.5% of the outstanding balance, down by 390 from Q3 2024 and 7% lower than a year earlier.
Buy-to-let mortgage possessions remained at 700, unchanged from the last quarter, but this marked a 29.6% rise from the previous year.
