24th
Jun 2021
A story recently featured in the Daily Mail reports that the Lloyds Banking Group will be buying its first BTL property as it sets itself up to become a PRS landlord.
The newspaper says that the Banking Group is near to completing its first purchase of a block in Peterborough and could in fact be letting them out in July.
The Lloyds’ scheme is unveiled under the working title ‘ Project Regeneration’ and the UK’s largest bank intends to ‘snap up’ existing and new-build properties across Britain. It has already set up its own subsidiary Citra Living to manage the bank’s rental portfolio.
Lloyds is Britain’s largest mortgage lender under the Halifax brand and wants take advantage of its knowledge of the housing market, brand recognition and of course its low finance costs.
The lender fully intends to become a major operator in the private rented sector. It is in little doubt that once the bank is a landlord it will offer/sell a range of products to its tenants, including loans for deposits and or insurance.
The company told the Daily Mail: “As we stated in our full-year results in February, we are committed to broadening access to home ownership and exploring opportunities to increase our support to the UK rental sector.”
Richard Merrick of PIMS, said: “What with John Lewis’ setting up its own landlord offshoot and now Lloyds entering into the fray who in effect will be ‘unfairly’ competing against its BTL clients, it is almost certain that other institutions and organisations will be looking into carving up the ‘residential’ rented market.
“Interesting times ahead for smaller landlords wishing to buy an additional property who could be slowly strangled out of the market with higher BTL mortgage rates, than its competitor.”
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