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Are rising holiday-let enquiries turning into completed mortgages?

ended 10. September 2026

The Cumberland’s Holiday Let Index found that 22 of 25 specialist mortgage brokers had seen holiday-let enquiries increase during the previous 12 months. However, Twenty7tec searches peaked at 3,471 in March 2026 before falling to 2,879 in May.

Bridging Loan Directory is examining what happens between initial interest and completion.

We would like to hear from mortgage and specialist finance brokers, lenders and holiday-let investors with recent first-hand experience.

  • Have enquiries increased, and are applications and completions rising with them?
  • Who is enquiring: existing buy-to-let landlords, established holiday-let operators or first-time investors?
  • What most often prevents cases progressing—affordability, deposit, valuation, projected income, tax, regulation or operating costs?
  • Are bridging loans being used to acquire or refurbish properties before refinancing onto holiday-let mortgages?

Please provide figures where possible and a recent anonymised case, including the property, finance required, what affected the application and the eventual outcome. Responses of 100–200 words would be ideal.

Index: https://www.cumberland.co.uk/news/holiday-let-index-summer-2026

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Tony SanchezVerified
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
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Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
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Holiday lets are attracting attention, but attention is not the same thing as bankable demand.

The biggest mistake I see is investors falling in love with the headline nightly rate and forgetting they are buying a small hospitality business. The lender still wants to know what happens in November, who manages it, what the realistic occupancy is, what cleaning, utilities, maintenance and platform fees cost, and whether the numbers survive a weaker season.

Bridging absolutely has a place where someone needs to buy quickly, refurbish, improve the property and then refinance onto a holiday-let mortgage. But the exit has to be designed before the bridge is taken, not invented six months later.

I think that explains the gap between searches and completions. Browsing a holiday let is exciting. Funding one properly requires brutal maths.

The properties completing are the ones where the investor has bought a business model, not just a pretty cottage.
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Iain ThompsonVerified
Director at Evolve Finance
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While early-stage holiday-let enquiries are rising, the drop in Twenty7tec searches highlights a widening conversion gap. We are primarily seeing established holiday-let operators expanding or existing buy-to-let landlords diversifying away from Section 24 tax pressures, rather than first-time investors.

The main friction points blocking completions are stringent affordability stress tests and fluctuating projected rental incomes from local holiday agents. Traditional lenders are heavily discounting seasonal income models, causing immediate affordability bottlenecks despite strong borrower deposits.

We have seen a recent £250,000 bridging enquiry to acquire and refurbish an unmortgageable coastal cottage in Cumbria, allowing the buyer to secure the asset and renovate it to maximize its rental projection, before refinancing onto a mainstream holiday-let term mortgage once trading history was established.
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Evren ErginVerified
Founder And Developer at ValuQ
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Rising enquiries are not converting because the sums behind a holiday let have changed more than the headline suggests. Three tax changes landed within six months: the additional-property stamp duty surcharge rose from 3% to 5% from 31 October 2024, councils gained the power to charge a premium of up to 100% on second homes from April 2025, and the furnished holiday lettings tax regime was abolished in the same month. Each one lowers the return an enquirer first expected.

The asset itself has softened too. Our analysis of HM Land Registry sales found the median price across 20 English holiday and second-home towns fell 6.8% between 2023 and 2025, while England rose 2.8%, with the premium resorts down 12.2%. A lender discounting seasonal income and a borrower hesitating at the final step are responding to the same arithmetic. Enquiries show interest. Completions depend on whether the numbers still add up once tax and price are counted, and for many enquirers this year they do not.