In the past few years, the demand for buy to let mortgages (i.e. letting out your property to others with the ultimate aim being to make money) has greatly increased due a massive growth in property prices together with unease over traditional share investments.

Some people have been tempted in to getting involved in the buy to let market because they feel comfortable with property and see it as a way of making money outside of more traditional methods such as saving accounts and on the stock market. However, not everyone is successful at making money from letting out properties and owning your own home and having watched a few property programs such as Property Ladder or location, location, location does not mean you have the skills to make buy to let work in your favour.

Ultimately buy to let is about structuring your finances to maximise your borrowing at the lowest possible cost. The stakes are high!

So what is buy to let?

If you want to buy a property to then let it out, you need a special buy to let mortgage. It is similar to a residential mortgage in that you can choose different types (fixed, discount etc,) but when it comes to assessing how much you can borrow, the key factor is not how much you earn, but the likely rental income you will earn from the property.