LendSwift provided a 12-month development loan for the purchase of two neighbouring sites, just outside Glasgow, requiring planning permission to build a mixture of 22 houses and flats in May 2019. After many bumps in the road, we made changes to our lending policies that will only further benefit our investors. Read more to learn about the journey that led us to these changes.
LendSwift provided a 12-month development loan for the purchase of two neighbouring sites, just outside Glasgow, requiring planning permission to build a mixture of 22 houses and flats in May 2019. After many bumps in the road, we made changes to our lending policies that will only further benefit our investors. Read more to learn about the journey that led us to these changes.
Diversity is an area where the property finance industry falls behind, particularly in terms of gender. Traditionally, the sector is known for being male dominated. Brokers and BDM’s would meet ‘down the pub’ to ‘do a deal’. Although things are changing, Boards of property finance companies are still populated mainly by men.
Our due diligence at LendSwift, when approving a loan, is as stringent as any lender on the market. Our primary concern is always the viability of the project and how we will ensure investor capital is protected and returned on time. Even with our extensive due diligence and our team’s years of property development knowledge, we still sometimes approve projects that turn out to be poor investments.
As a small lender, we examine development or bridging loans brought to us on a case by case basis. We make sure the deal is viable, lucrative and makes commercial sense. Our private investors provide the capital to fund each loan we take on, so we look at each deal from the mindset of our investors. If the LendSwift team is not prepared to put their own money towards the loan, in is not a sound investment.
As a business, we have funded all kinds of development projects; commercial, residential, and mixed; from small refurbishments to large scale projects costing millions of pounds. In January of this year we were buoyant about our potential growth and profitability and then, Covid turned the building sites we fund into ghost towns.
