The parent firm of specialist lender Paragon Mortgages, The Paragon Group of Companies, has revealed its results for the year ending 30th September 2015.
The firm reported a 10.2% rise in underlying profit for the year, hitting £134.7m, from £122.2m in 2014.
Over the last 12 months, Paragon experienced a huge increase in activity, with buy-to-let lending reaching £1.33 billion, equivalent to 102% growth over the year, from £656.6m in 2014.
Its pipeline of new applications further highlights the increase in business. On 30th September, it stood at £713.7m, up by 72.1% on the same period last year.
Director of Mortgages at Paragon, John Heron, comments: “Access to retail markets through Paragon Bank has provided the group with a material diversification of funding. This has helped facilitate a step change in buy-to-let lending, driven by a significant broadening of our product range and a more consistently competitive position for both large-scale professional landlords and smaller scale property investors.
“It has been a fantastic year for the group overall and with our acquisition of Five Arrows Leasing through Paragon Bank, there will be more exciting opportunities to come.”1
Paragon’s figures indicate that landlords are still confident in the buy-to-let sector, despite a series of changes due for introduction in the near future.
Managing Director of Nova Financial, Paul Mahoney, has also “witnessed an increase in buy-to-let property investments” recently.
He continues: “Although the sector has endured some challenging changes on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there is no disputing the returns that geared buy-to-let property investments have provided over the past 20 years; nearly tripling that of the FTSE all share index.
“With changes reducing the tax deductibility of mortgage interest and increasing Stamp Duty Land Tax, some may be a bit concerned regarding the impact.”
But Mahoney isn’t too worried: “Overall, the simple law of economics; supply (severe lack thereof) versus demand (increasingly strong) will prevail and property will continue to be a sound investment.”
Will you continue investing in property, or is your time as a landlord coming to an end?
1 https://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2015/11/new-buy-to-let-lending-up-102-at-paragon