The Paragon Group of Companies has announced total lending and investment for the nine months to 30th June 2017 of £1.4bn.

Buy-to-let mortgage lending comprised £1bn of the total.

The figures were released as part of the Q3 trading update of the parent company of Paragon Mortgages.

Buy-to-let lending between March and June 2017 stood at £458m, a healthy rise compared with the £166m in Q3 2016, which followed the rise in stamp duty for buy-to-let purchases. 

Paragon’s application flows reflect market share gains as a result of increasing demand from professional landlord customers.

The proportion of complex and professional landlord customers in the pipeline rose to 70% during the quarter, up from 62% at the start of the year.

At the end of the quarter, the pipeline of new buy-to-let business totalled £700m. 

During the same quarter, 96% of lending went through Paragon Bank, cementing its central position in funding the group’s new lending flows.

The group also saw good progress with its diversification strategy, growing new asset finance and other specialist lending by 66% to £330m in the nine months to 30th June.

John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages (pictured above), said: “The buy-to-let market has been the subject of repeated fiscal and regulatory intervention in recent times.

“This is changing the nature of buy-to-let and what we are seeing emerge is a more specialist market with a marked increase in more complex, professional landlord business.

“This is very well aligned with Paragon’s experience and capability as underlined by today’s strong trading figures and by our early implementation of phase two of the PRA’s regulatory requirements for buy-to-let."