Unlocking Buy to Let and Consumer Buy to Let opportunities with Together.

The Buy to Let market continues to be challenging for landlords in 2025, but it’s also an essential aspect of a functioning housing market. With changing rental reform and increasing Stamp Duty costs, landlords will need support as they navigate through a changing environment – and brokers are uniquely positioned to provide it.

Three of our expert team came together for a special hour-long webinar (available to all our intermediary partners on our dedicated Chalk resource hub) to speak about the opportunities and challenges that landlords are seeing.

We listened in on the eye-opening discussion, along with several of our intermediary customers.

Here’s the highlights of the webinar:

What are the current trends in the Buy to Let market?

Michelle Walsh, Head of Intermediary Sales for Commercial Finance at Together, kicked off the chat by talking about some of the prevalent trends we’ve been seeing in the Buy to Let market over the last year, and how working with a flexible specialist lender like Together could help brokers bypass some of the challenges they might encounter from other lenders.

More Buy to Let customers borrowing through a limited company structure

“Since 2016, there’s been an uplift of 332% of Buy to Let limited companies being set up to purchase buy to let properties. That's a massive percentage over that period with over 400,000 companies now set up for these types of transactions.

There are tax savings by owning properties in a limited company structure. At Together, in the past 12 months, we've seen that of all applications submitted by our broker partners, about 45% of these applications were for limited company structures. We also expect to see this continue to grow in the coming years.”

Differences in Buy to Let criteria for limited companies

“The main one is that we'll always require the (limited company) customer to have their own solicitor acting on their behalf for the transaction.”

Diversification of Buy to Let portfolios

“The diversification of portfolios is a key trend we’re seeing. Professional landlords are diversifying into different sectors and investment asset classes such as student accommodation, social housing, and serviced accommodations. Airbnb remains an area that can return a decent level of profit. Many other lenders are finding supporting landlords with this transition hard.

Another trend is the continued change from standard single family lets into HMO's. We continue to see a lot of refurbishments as landlords adopt new strategies and are well placed to support them in their plans. This includes working with landlords without previous experience and those living overseas.

As we're not constrained by minimum earned income, we can also work with many applications that other lenders are unable to support.

A final trend that are seeing is resilient landlords purchasing in regional areas where the property values are lower. Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham are attracting a lot of growth, so there are great opportunities for investments in those cities.”

What solutions are available for unexpected landlords?

Next, our Head of Intermediary Sales for Personal Finance, Maeve Ward, brought up a scenario that has become increasingly common in recent years – people becoming landlords accidentally through circumstance, rather than desire – and how Consumer Buy to Let (CBTL) mortgages were created to offer them more protection, as a regulated product.

When might a client be considered as a Consumer Buy to Let?

“The main difference between a typical Buy to Let and a Consumer Buy to Let is that they are intended for individuals that become a landlord through circumstance as opposed to desire and offer the benefit of regulatory protection.

The obvious circumstance would be if you'd inherited a property, maybe from grandparents or a parent. Other scenarios might be if you are relocating for work or have had a change in personal circumstance such as moving in with a partner or moving into assisted living and through circumstance go on to let your existing residential property out.”

How is Consumer Buy to Let affordability assessed?

“Affordability is assessed purely on the rental income, either on a 125%, 145% or 165% rental coverage.

We can also look at projected rental income evidenced by a reputable estate agent, for example, if the property is not currently tenanted and the client is in the midst of some remedial work to get it up to the standard for re-letting and a tenant is imminent.”

What opportunities does becoming an accidental landlord present?

“Whilst this might all be circumstance driven, it presents an opportunity for these accidental landlords for two reasons.

The first one is if they intend to rent the security as opposed to selling it can bolster their income.

But also as the property over time increases in value they can look to leverage the equity, both provide the means in which a customer can achieve personal or property ambitions.”

Simplifying how brokers can submit business

And finally, we were joined by Head of Networks and Clubs at Together, Nick Parker, as he spoke about how the relatively new channel was opening up new and more simplified routes for around 200,000 brokers (from a range of different Networks & Clubs) to submit their Buy to Let business with a specialist lender who can cater for their diverse needs.

How has the way brokers research the right lender for their case changed?

“Several years ago, it was a lot more difficult to find your way to a lender like Together. If you think about the sort of the traditional aggregator systems, the traditional way in which brokers would have undertaken their research, it tended to be rate driven. You could put very little information about a customer characteristic into a source platform and get the right answer. It meant a lot of heavy lifting on the broker’s part who had to do a little bit of ringing around if the right product was not initially surfaced.

But that tech has evolved quite significantly. Now, sourcing platforms can cater for more detailed scenarios. It's not just product led. Now, it's more around being able to input lots more of the granular detail around the characteristics of the customer circumstances. So, the outputs that come from running those scenarios through the system are more targeted and more accurate, and it's never been easier to find your way to the type of product solutions provided by specialist lenders like Together.

Brokers can submit most Buy to Let cases directly through our portal

“Buy to Let and Consumer Buy to Let are very much the staple diet of network and club brokers, so they often don’t need the help of a packager for these cases. We've certainly had a huge amount of demand from our network and club partners and it's great to be able to open our doors and give direct access to those kind of products to that cohort of brokers.”

For more complex cases, such as Holiday Let and Second Charge Buy to Let, Together can match brokers up with the perfect packaging partner

“Having returned to this market, we're learning more about our network and club partners and where their expertise and specialisms lie. We want to evolve our tech to support the kind of product lines going forward in the future that cater for even more scenarios. But, our viewpoint at the moment is that we don't want to run before we can walk in this area.

We have a number of trusted packager partners that absolutely understand how Together works, the requirements for cases including second charge and holiday lets, and the type of heavy lifting involved in satisfying underwriting inquiries and anticipate questions that are likely to come up.

We would absolutely encourage brokers to engage with those packaging partners. And, if they're not sure of who to speak to, then we can certainly match them up with the perfect packaging partner to be able to get that case through to us.”

These are just some of the topics covered by Michelle, Maeve and Nick, so, if you’d like to watch the webinar in full, it’s now available on Chalk: your intermediary resource page.

If you’d like to find out more detail on our Buy to Let products available to you, please check out or Packagers and Networks and Clubs pages.