Buy to let finance is designed for investors wanting to purchase a property and let it out to tenants. This is an especially useful way allowing businesses to acquire a multitude of commercial buildings, whilst not investing their entire business finances into them.
The owner can benefit from any increases in property value, while rental income can be used to meet the loan (mortgage) repayments. With multiple commercial buildings all of which increasing (hopefully) in value, a large amount of asset value can grow over time.
In recent years there has been a huge increase in the number of people buying to let. In 1998, there were 28,700 buy to let mortgages while the 2005 figure was 701,900. This increase lead to the surge in house prices in the UK, and arguably contributed to the eventual financial crash of 2008.
Despite its recent reputation, buy to let finance is common and financially viable way of acquiring a substantial amount of asset value.