Landlords juggle multiple buy to let loans

Landlords with buy to let borrowing are now managing multiple mortgages across different lenders, with portfolios increasingly shaped by layered finance arrangements.

Pegasus Insight’s latest data shows that landlords with BTL loans hold an average of 6.5 mortgages, and these are typically spread across 2.1 lenders.

Total borrowing sits at £714,000, pointing to the scale of exposure across many portfolios.

The firm’s Landlord Trends Q4 2025 report also highlights that borrowing is rarely concentrated with a single provider.

Instead, landlords are operating across a mix of products, often with differing terms, maturity dates and refinancing points, sometimes overlapping.

Landlord borrowing structure

The firm’s founder and chief executive, Mark Long, said: “What stands out from the data is the degree to which landlord borrowing is structured across multiple products and lenders.

“For many, managing finance is no longer a one-off decision, but an ongoing process.”

He added: “What’s interesting here is not just the number of loans, but what that says about how landlords are operating.

“Managing multiple mortgages across different lenders requires a level of coordination and forward planning that simply wasn’t part of the model for many landlords historically.

“That creates both opportunity and exposure for borrowers.

“When financing is structured across several products, decisions in one part of the portfolio can have knock-on effects elsewhere, particularly around refinancing and cashflow timing.”

Tracking BTL repayments

Landlords with several lenders means their borrowing structure brings added demands around timing and coordination.

Managing several loans at once means tracking repayment schedules, product expiries and refinancing windows, often at the same time, across a portfolio.

There is also evidence of early action around refinancing.

Seven in 10 landlords began their most recent remortgage process at least three months before product maturity, suggesting preparation well ahead of deadlines.

Broker involvement continues to feature, particularly where borrowing spans multiple lenders or products.

Intermediaries remain widely used, especially among landlords with larger or more complex holdings.

A more important question than how many loans you have

The Pegasus Insight data is useful, but it only tells part of the story.

At Property118, we have been analysing landlord behaviour at a much broader level through our own research, including the most recent Property118 Landlord Sentiment Survey Q1 2026.

That survey covered 2,380 landlords and more than 23,000 rental properties. The findings point to a much more significant shift than simply juggling multiple loans.

Many landlords are now:

• Sitting on substantial levels of equity, often with loan-to-value ratios below 50%
• Generating relatively modest levels of income compared to the capital tied up
• Beginning to question whether their current structure still supports their long-term goals

This is where the conversation changes, because the issue is not really how many mortgages you have, it is whether your borrowing structure is working efficiently for you, or simply the result of decisions made at different points in time.

From fragmented borrowing to strategic control

In our consultancy work, we regularly see portfolios where:

• Equity is underutilised
• Cashflow is lower than it could be
• Refinancing decisions have been made in isolation rather than as part of a wider plan

In one recent case, a landlord with over £1m of equity that could easily be released via further advances was generating less than £35,000 per year if pre-tax profit. After modelling the portfolio properly, it became clear that cashflow could be materially improved within a relatively short timeframe, without increasing overall risk.

That is not unusual, in fact it is increasingly typical.

What most landlords have never been shown is how to step back and assess their portfolio as a single business, rather than a collection of individual properties and loans.

If this sounds familiar

If you recognise elements of your own position in this, you are not alone.

You can explore the full research findings here: https://www.property118.com/results-of-the-property118-landlord-sentiment-survey-q1-2026/

Or, if you would like to understand how these principles apply to your own portfolio, you can take the next step by completing the form below: