Since the country emerged from ‘lockdown 1’ after having a few months in hibernation, we have seen a surge of old and new developer clients gearing up, re stocking and finishing off development and commercial projects along with refurbs that had been delayed due to the dreaded Corona. The team spent much of April, May and August working with our existing clients liaising with lenders to ensure promised funding was honoured and that contingency was in place for the inevitable delays as valuers stopped valuing, labourers stopped labouring, lenders stopped lending and sourcing building materials such as plaster became as rare as a four pack of toilet roll!Â
Since then and over the past couple of months as we have got back to some kind of parity our developer and commercial clients have continued to trust in their experience and the trends of the past that show that when times of hardship for the economy are in play there are some excellent long term investment opportunities. We are having more conversations around raising ‘war chest’ funding so that clients are liquid when a property investment opportunity arises. I have also been really impressed with most lenders who have continued to support specialist finance cases where the deal works. Understandably, underwriting and stress testing has been ramped up, making it even more vital for our team here to understand and keep abreast of our lenders ever changing criteria and their appetite to lend at any point.
We have seen a really interesting mix of business in September across the team and here are some of the areas we have been able to assist:
• Development loan to assist with 5 houses with planning consent
• Self-build mortgage for an inexperienced developer
• 2nd charge mortgage to build an annex
• bridging loans to acquire land (in anticipation of planning or land with existing planning where the client will go for improved planning)
• War chest funding (refinancing and further leveraging on a significant property portfolio)
• Lending to a Ltd company to purchase their trading business premises (currently renting)
• Short term bridging loan to purchase a new home in anticipation of the sale of their current home
This small selection from September shows the diversity of cases that land on our desk. I personally love specialist finance because each case is completely unique and always challenging. A qualified broker is often the difference between a yes or a no. I am extremely proud of our team to be able to assist our clients with their journey using our years of experience, contacts and knowledge of the specialist and commercial market.
I remain completely convinced that if there is a way to make a deal work, then we have the tools, experience and contacts to make it happen, couple that with the fact we are independent and search the market for the cheapest financing options for our clients we believe our offering in the market is completely unique.
