Despite a challenging 2017 for the buy-to-let market, characterised by tax and regulatory changes, including the first stage of the phasing out of mortgage interest relief, Paragon Banking Group has posted a sharp rise in first quarter lending as it continues to support buy-to-let landlords.

The lender yesterday reported a 65% year-on-year increase in new advances across all business lines to deliver £470m of new lending in Q1 2018.

Within this total, Paragon’s mortgage lending grew by 84% to £367m, with buy-to-let advances up 85% to £343m. Second charge and specialist residential lending grew by 74% to £24m. 

The buy-to-let market is facing more stringent regulations and the most recent regulatory changes require lenders to collect and analyse more information about a landlord’s property portfolio. But Paragon said that its experience and capability in the buy-to-let market enabled it to increase its share of more specialist portfolio landlord business despite a backdrop of

John Heron, managing director of mortgages at Paragon, commented: “Paragon was the first lender to offer buy-to-let mortgages over 20 years ago and has developed its specialist capability around professional landlords over many years. It is very well aligned with the developments we have seen in the market following changes in government policy and regulation in the sector and this has allowed Paragon to significantly increase lending to portfolio landlords with more complex requirements.

“We are continuing to focus on product and technology developments that will deliver improved products and services to our landlords and intermediaries with the roll-out of new mobile applications and document upload over Q2.”