The majority of intermediaries are seeing stable or growing levels of demand from landlord clients, according to Paragon Mortgages’ research.

The specialist lender’s FACT (Financial Advisor Confidence Tracking) survey for the first quarter, shows 91% of intermediaries view landlord demand as growing or stable and just 7% saying demand was weak.

In terms of intermediaries’ views on levels of buy-to-let mortgage business, 53% said in the second quarter they expect the number of cases to remain stable. However, 45% are more optimistic saying they expect to write more buy-to-let business.

Survey results for the first three months of the year also showed that 23% of intermediaries’ business was buy-to-let, 18% was for first-time buyers and 35% were remortgages.

The quarterly survey has also, for the past 20 years, kept an intermediary confidence index – taking the average number of mortgage cases completed in the current quarter, measured against expected business levels in the next quarter.

Confidence for Q1 2015 has increased with a score of 105.2 from 102.9 in Q4 2014. The index recovered throughout 2013 and 2014, after it fell from 2008 onwards and reached its lowest level in Q3 2010 of 63.0.

John Heron (pictured), director of Paragon Mortgages, said: “We have been running our FACT survey with a panel of 200 intermediaries since 1995, tracking key trends and views on the buy-to-let and wider mortgage markets.

“There were no great movements in this quarter’s survey findings, what is evident though, is intermediaries are feeling optimistic about the buy-to-let market. Following the results of the General Election, it will be interesting to see whether we see an increase in intermediaries’ case load as confidence increases in the wider housing market.”