'Diversify with bridging loans in shrinking market'
Tuesday February 19th 2008
A leading provider of bridging loans for residential property has highlighted the advantages for intermediaries of adding the interim lending option to their portfolio.Link Lending's managing director John McLean told MortgageIntroducer.com that short-term bridging loans could boost an ailing lending portfolio that was suffering as the volume of market residential property declined.
He explained that with some estimates reporting that the credit crunch had sapped the residential mortgage market of some 30 per cent of its volume, it was imperative for brokers to seek new areas of interest.
And bridging projects involving a change of use – such as conversion of a commercial property into a house – could provide a new income source, Mr McLean explained, providing that they were handled wisely.
Doing away with the old image of bridging finance as a means of buying new property before selling off existing ones was said to be key.
And the savviest intermediaries would successfully convey to clients how useful bridging loans could be as finance secured on a property which, alone, long-term lenders are not willing to accept as security.