Paragon Bank celebrates 30 years of pioneering landlord mortgages

Paragon Bank is celebrating three decades since launching its inaugural mortgage for landlords, a move that helped shape the UK’s private rental landscape.

The bank’s first loan, issued in 1995 for £31,150 at a 70% loan-to-value ratio on a £45,000 property, came a year before the term ‘buy to let’ was coined.

This pioneering step, led by industry veteran John Heron, who steered the mortgage division until 2019, laid the foundation for Paragon’s growth.

Over the past 30 years, the bank has facilitated more than 240,000 mortgages, totalling around £33 billion, and supported more than 300,000 landlords.

First landlord BTL mortgage

Paragon’s managing director, Louisa Sedgwick, said: “Buy to let is in our DNA, launching our first landlord mortgage a year before the term was even invented.

“We pioneered buy to let in the UK and our landlord customers have provided a home to millions of tenants over the last three decades.

“As we all know, the market has changed significantly in the 30 years since we wrote our first landlord mortgage.

“We’ve changed with it, gaining in-depth knowledge, expertise and experience and building a reputation for one of the leading specialist lenders.”

She added: “We’re continuing to move forward and evolving for the benefit of our customers and partners.”

Helped created buy to let

Paragon says it has played a key role in establishing the buy to let sector, collaborating with ARLA (now Propertymark) and specialist intermediaries to introduce the term in 1996.

Today, the market boasts around £300 billion in outstanding loans across two million mortgages.

The bank says that BTL loans consistently demonstrate stronger credit performance than owner-occupied mortgages for 24 of the last 25 years.

Paragon has earned a reputation as a leading specialist lender, catering to landlords with extensive property portfolios.

More recently, Paragon has expanded its offerings to help smaller landlords, streamlining its systems to make applications quicker and more efficient.

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