Regentsmead: Brokers must embrace development finance market

Recent research by CBRE revealed a total of £722m of London development land sales completed in the second quarter of 2017, making it the strongest quarter since before the EU referendum and a 48% increase on Q1 2017.

CBRE said the quarterly uplift was driven by overseas developers, who represented 83% of development land buyers in Q2 2017 and were focused principally on large lot sizes for mixed use development, including residential projects.

Ashley Ilsen, head of lending at Regentsmead, said: “The figures will be skewed by the recent uplift in private rented sector (PRS) schemes which are often very attractive to overseas developers. The by-product of this is that mortgage brokers are required to become more specialist on the range of products they offer. Previously mortgage brokers could get by on having a knowledge of generic mortgage products, however the requirements nowadays is forcing brokers to have a better understanding of the specialist lending market and any broker worth their salt would need a suite of specialist products to offer their clients.”