Speaking on a panel at The Specialist Lending Event, Alex Swan, deputy head of underwriting and head of artificial intelligence (AI) at SDKA, said: “What you need, and what the client is most interested in is a lender that’s going to be able to deliver what they said they’d be able to deliver and on the timelines they say they deliver it in.
“Every bridging lender is going to tell you that they’re the quickest, but really what you need is the other elements that go into creating a smooth process for a client.”
He explained that brokers have to make sure that they are “speaking directly to the decision-makers”.
“You’re going to come across problems in bridging, and if you’re speaking to individuals at whatever lender you’re dealing with that are five links down the chain, then the communication is going to become difficult, because they’re going to need to go through multiple people to get a decision ready for you.
“It’s going to take you day, sometimes over a week, to get a response, and that’s going to cause frustration. So, speaking directly to decision-makers, making sure you’re getting clear and transparent communication, is crucial,” Swan said.
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Other elements that brokers should be looking for in a bridging lender, Swan said, include efficiency in process and whether lenders have multiple funding lines, as they will have more options to get deals over the line if one line, for whatever reason, is pulled.
Finally, brokers should check if bridging lenders are Annex 1 registered, as it ensures that they have “suitable processes that are Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated for anti-money laundering procedures”.
“All of those elements together are really important, and making sure that you’re going to be able to deliver the best outcomes for your clients, and that ultimately is what’s going to build the trust,” Swan added.
When asked what the biggest opportunities are going to be in the next 12 months in bridging, Swan highlighted stamp duty changes coming in in April, which could mean residential pricing gets more expensive and may need bridging to support.
Another opportunity is semi-commercial properties, especially when converting semi-commercial that haven’t been used in while back into residential properties.
There have also been changes to planning permission that make it easier to convert agricultural buildings into residential properties, so “cumbersome planning permission doesn’t have to be carried out” to enable this.
Lenders have ‘really come to the table’
Scott Howitt, sales director at Chartwell Mortgage Services, said in the last 6-18 months, lenders have “really come full circle”.
He noted that in the pre-crash days, the “lending community was in a bit of a mess actually”.
“I think we sauntered along for a long period of time after all the things that went wrong. I actually feel like in the last maybe 18 months, or certainly the last six months, lenders have almost come really full circle. Some of the service that’s around there now, some of the innovations, some of the criteria changes, and I really feel like lenders have come back to the table,” he said.
Howitt said that looking at the mainstream market – and the specialist market to a large degree – there are “more products on the market now than there have ever been at any point in the past”.
“It’s very rare that you find a customer where you’re not able to do a solution of some description. It’s about uncovering every stone to say: ‘We can’t do this, but we can do this and this is what the solution might be’”.
Howitt noted that he thought customers were “more amenable” to different solutions and were “not so blinkered”.
“I think we’ve got, certainly into this year, I think everybody feels this at the minute, is lead activity has increased, and the variation in that lead activity and what’s out there, to me, looks very different.
“Now, I think it’s people are looking for different things and I think lenders have come right up to the table. I do think the service that lenders actually offer at the minute… is absolutely tip-top. It’s absolutely up there. It’s great. Some of the offer times are coming out now are absolutely exceptional,” he said.
Want to learn more about The Specialist Lending Event? Follow this link: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/events/the-specialist-lending-event/?tsle2026source=article
