Mortgage for a future buy-to-let

Redrobbin596

I am thinking of buying a house to live in for a couple of years (or less) with a view to renting after that.

At present I think I need a homebuyer mortgage, however in a while I will potentially need to change this to a buy to let.

I am a bit concerned about the possibility of being left with early repayment charges for the initial lender as they may not be happy to convert the mortgage to a buy to let. Does this mean I should be looking at SVR products only?

I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

Many thanks.

Annisele

You're right that you need a normal residential mortgage now.

The difficulty with the rest of your question is that you're asking what mortgage criteria are going to be in a couple of years - and that's very difficult to comment on sensibly.

At the moment, if you wanted to switch to a buy-to-let mortgage you'd need at least 20% equity, and probably 25% - and it'd help a lot if you had another residential mortgage and an income of at least £25k.

If you wanted get consent-to-let - keeping your residential terms and (sometimes) residential rate - that depends on your lender's policy at the time you switch. Most of them are very suspicious of people who want to switch within a few months of buying the place, because that looks as though they were trying to get a back door BTL from the beginning.

If you're only going to want to keep the place for a couple of years, are you sure you wouldn't be better off just renting yourself?

amnblog

If you would like a list of consent to let policies for major lenders pm me.

Redrobbin596

Thanks for the replies. There are a number of reasons I am keen to buy - one is that I have been renting for ages and am just desperate to do the whole making a home thing! Another is that I am moving to a newish area and am not totally sure exactly where I want to live - getting a small house would buy me a bit of time and hopefully flexibility (which is why I don't want to be stuck in some tricky mortgage situation!)

I don't think I would have a problem securing a buy to let mortgage - and could put up a reasonable LTV amount (house isn't that expensive!). I am quite happy to play straight with the mortgage company - I have one buy to let property already and would regard this one as an ongoing investment - I think it is unlikely i would want to sell in the medium term.

Thrugelmir

The property you buy as a home may not be the same as the one to let as a business. Something worth thinking through.

Redrobbin596

I agree Thrugelmir - it is a good point. However this particular property is currently let so I suspect it could be again in the future - it probably fulfils the future let category more that the home category, but I think for me would be better than renting.