Growth in mortgage lending may be a shadow of its pre-crisis self, but growth in buy-to-let lending is now almost as high as before the financial crisis hit (see chart one).
According to data from the Bank of England, housing market activity climbed about 2% in 2015, with growth driven nearly exclusively by buy-to-let mortgages – advances on new loans amounted to £43bn this year, opposed to the £46bn peak in 2007.
