Skipton Building Society has updated its lending policy to allow for mortgages on new build buy-to-let flats for the first time, as well as making changes to buy-to-let stress rate calculations.

The mutual said the changes have been made following feedback from brokers as well as changing conditions and requirements of the market. It noted that brokers have been seeing trends from their clients with an appetite to purchase new build flats to rent out due to the environmental and energy efficient advantages.

The changes are as follows:

• Now lending on buy-to-let new build flats for the first time (up to 75%)
• On five-year fixed rate products or longer, the stress rates have reduced from 5% to 4.5%
• Buy-to-let minimum property value has increased from £50,000 to £75,000.

John Scrivens, Skipton’s intermediary lead, said: “At Skipton we regularly seek feedback from brokers, and we have seen a real shift in that feedback recently, the buy-to-let market is changing and the topic of more energy efficient properties is becoming a regular conversation point with landlords.

“It is, therefore, really exciting that not only are we entering the new build flat market for buy-to-let but we are keeping things simple by lending up to 75% on them too.  This is in line with our maximum LTV’s on buy-to-lets and is our way of making things easier for you.”