Foundation Home Loans has refreshed its specialist buy-to-let range with a new Green HMO five-year fix and a 0.20-point cut to holiday let pricing, giving landlords another sign that product competition is widening beyond standard vanilla cases.

The lender has reintroduced several F1 products, brought back an HMO two-year fix and launched a Green HMO option at 75% loan to value. It has also reduced holiday let rates by 0.20 points, with pricing now starting from 5.99%. In a market where many landlords are reshaping portfolios rather than simply adding standard single lets, that mix matters more than the headline rate alone.

For investors, the change is useful because it targets the sort of stock that still attracts interest despite tighter regulation – higher-yield HMOs, remortgage cases and specialist holiday let borrowing where mainstream lender appetite can thin out quickly.

New pricing broadens specialist options

Among the refreshed products are an F1 two-year fix at 75% LTV with a 3% fee, an F1 remortgage product at 4.24% with a 4% fee, an HMO two-year fix at 4.94%, and the new HMO Green five-year fix at 5.49% with a 5% fee and £500 cashback. Foundation has also reduced rates on its F2 holiday let products.

The structure says a lot about where specialist lending is moving. Landlords are still willing to pay for flexibility or niche underwriting where the asset type, borrower profile or exit plan is more complex than a plain remortgage on a single AST.

Grant Hendry, director of sales at Foundation Home Loans, said the changes are intended to give brokers more choice across remortgage, portfolio growth and specialist property cases.

This follows Residential Landlord’s earlier coverage of Foundation’s specialist landlord push, which showed the lender leaning into HMOs and short-term lets rather than competing only on mainstream pricing. It also sits alongside Residential Landlord’s report on EPC-linked mortgage options, as lenders increasingly try to separate greener or more specialist stock from the broad buy-to-let pack.

Why landlords should look past the headline rate

There is no shortage of product announcements in buy-to-let, but the detail matters. A 5% fee on a green HMO fix will not suit every borrower, and holiday let investors still need to stress-test occupancy, local regulation and refinancing risk. Even so, the direction of travel is clear: lenders still see business in experienced landlord segments where yields are better and cases are harder to place.

Landlords comparing options should focus on:

• total cost over the likely hold period, not just pay rate
• whether cashback or fee support offsets higher product charges
• EPC position if a green route is involved
• how easily the property type can be refinanced later

That is especially true for HMO and holiday let borrowers, where regulatory or local-market shifts can alter the exit route more quickly than for standard stock.

The latest product details were published in Foundation’s 31 July range refresh, covered in its latest specialist product update.

Opinion

Specialist lenders are telling landlords something quite plain: growth is still possible, but only for borrowers who understand their stock and their numbers. Cheap money is not back. Precision is.