Commercial Property News - Residential property market boosted by stable buy-to-let statistics

Commercial Property News - Residential property market boosted by stable buy-to-let statistics

Mixed news for the buy-to-let market has kept the residential property sector stable at a difficult time.

New figures from the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) found a total of £2.9 billion was dished out in the form of 27,600 loans during the first three months of 2011.

While this was slightly down on the previous quarter, it was up on the corresponding period in 2010.

Indeed, it was significantly higher than the £2.1 billion recorded a year earlier, when only 22,000 loans were approved and the industry was arguably in a weaker position.

"Demand for rental property remains strong and as more funding becomes available we would expect to see buy-to-let lending increasing. The performance of buy-to-let loans is also holding up well," said CML director general Michael Coogan.

There was also good news for the investment property market this week as Parmdeep Vadesha, creator of the Property Tycoons Community website, noted it is improving all the time.