New figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that many investors jumped at the excellent buy to let mortgage rates that were available on the market. In fact, for those that were looking for a good deal, CML reports that there were about 124,000 different products available compared to the 94,000 that were on the market the previous year.

The increase in products means that consumers had options when it came to picking who they would go with, and more options meant low mortgage rates for most as the lenders were competing for business. One of the reasons that there is so much more buy to let activity is the fact that there has been an increase in the amount of tenants in the UK as the property market slowly shifts towards a rental market.

This is due to the fact that many first time buyers are having a hard time raising the required deposits for a mortgage even if the lower mortgage rates sound good.  The tightening of the credit criteria required to receive a loan has also impacted many renters that ordinarily would have purchased a home.

Lenders have responded to the situation by offering better buy to let mortgage rates for landlords although the CML still believes that there are plenty of offers out there for first time buyers if they can meet the correct set of criterion.

Overall, in 2011 about £14b worth of deals were completed which is the largest amount since 2007 when the housing market actually collapsed along with the economy, but it was still only half of the whopping £28b that was seen in 2008 making it a market that still has a lot of recovering potential to come. Yet the steady increase is encouraging.

During the last quarter of 2011 there were 38,000 mortgages approved totalling up to £4bn which was a slight increase over the higher performances of the third quarter as well. This suggests that the buy to let market is tentatively starting to come back. Director General for CML, Paul Smee, stated that buy to let lending continues to remain strong and so long as demand for rented property continues to grow it is reasonable to see reflected growth in the actual buy to let market.