Specialist Bridging Finance The bridging market has made massive strides over the last decade. Although it was often seen as the product of last resort before the financial crash, for those of us that traded through the last recession it was a life-saver business wise when there were few opportunities within commercial and residential term finance. Short-term finance, as we prefer to call it, has now become a mainstream product and an invaluable tool for brokers. Competition has increased massively with new lender entrants appearing almost every week and this has driven down interest rates and improved terms for borrowers. We now have a mature short-term finance market with a multitude of choice for both borrowers and brokers, but for many brokers an archaic method of sourcing products. Short-Term Finance Sourcing With so many varied products now available, how can a broker ensure a client receives the best product for their unique set of circumstances? How do you ensure you do not fall into the trap of approaching a lender purely based on your relationship with them and nothing else? Manually underwriting a case with many different lenders can be a massively time-consuming task when calculating rolled up interest and contradicts one of the main selling points of short-term finance – speed. We have seen a couple of the sourcing systems try to crack short-term finance sourcing, but have not been impressed with anything seen to date. With this in mind, at Specialist Bridging Finance we developed BridgeQuote™; an easy to use sourcing system that enables us to compare a large number of lenders within 30 seconds, email a compliant Decision in Principle pdf document to our introducer / client detailing all costs and fees, and allows us to retain the evidence of product availability at that moment in time for future reference. It has taken hours off the processing times on some cases and enables us to quickly deal with the ‘tyre-kickers’ and concentrate on the ‘buyers’. Obviously, the ‘rates from’ scenario that some lenders have makes things slightly difficult at times, but the sourcing system caters for this. Surveys Another area where we are seeing an improvement is within survey reports. As any broker within short-term finance will tell you, the dreaded RICS report is one of the most frustrating aspects of our job. The many reasons for this are for another discussion, but thankfully some lenders are now addressing this issue with technology. With the massive amounts of property related data now available to lenders, the likes of Hometrack and Rightmove Automated Valuation Models (AVM’s) are becoming increasingly popular with some lenders for residential property. For a cost of £20-£30 regardless of property value, it takes seconds for an AVM to provide a solution that would take days or even weeks when instructing a surveyor. This is something we all hope more lenders will incorporate into their business models soon, for low LTV cases on standard residential property. After all, speed is essential for short-term finance. Spotlight on United Trust Bank United Trust Bank is an award winning and customer focused specialist bank with dedicated divisions providing mortgages, bridging finance, development finance, structured finance, asset finance and professional loans. Their in-depth knowledge combined with commercial awareness, makes them the lender of choice for individuals, SMEs, finance brokers and developers seeking a high quality, bespoke service. Establishing strong relationships with their broker partners is fundamental to the continued success of their business. They understand the important role brokers play in providing advice to their clients and they strive to add value by providing outstanding service and building relationships for the long term. What our Introducer said... “This is my first case I have used Specialist Finance for and I’m happy to say you will be my first port of call for any future deals that apply to your company. A massive thank you to all the team.” What the customer said... “Overall extremely pleased - I felt very confident with the knowledge of the staff.” Mrs B. Lawrence B., Broker www.SpecialistHub.co.uk 9
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