Specialist Merseyside property lender Bridging Finance Solutions advances more than £12m for multiple Liverpool city region developments taking its total to £300m. Tony McDonough reports
Property lender Bridging Finance Solutions (BFS) has advanced more than £12m to developers across Liverpool city region in the past three months.
Wallasey-based BFS focuses on short-term lending to smaller and medium-sized developers. It typically offers loans of between £100,000 and £3m. This cash provides vital ‘bridging’ finance to ensure schemes are completed.
Among deals completed in the past three months are five luxury detached homes in Heswall within a gated community with a loan of £4m. A similar scheme in Oxton for six luxury houses secured a £2m facility.
BFS also loaned £1m for the redevelopment of nine apartments in Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter.
Other projects including two semi-detached homes in Formby, supported with a £600,000 loan and six apartments in Southport funded with a £1.6m facility, have also recently completed.
In early September LBN revealed BFS is to upgrade its Wirral office in a £2m expansion and will create 17 new jobs. Now in its 18th year, the firm plans to add another 17 people to its existing team of 25. This will include five apprentices.
It will remain in its original headquarters in Wallasey Road and is acquiring, demolishing and developing adjacent properties alongside reconfiguring the existing buildings.
Managing director Steve Barber said: “The small to medium size developer is our ideal customer for whom we help fund schemes.
“The majority of lenders are not particularly interested in this end of the market but for us this is our absolute sweet spot and to date we have provided more than £300m to our clients.
“Coupled with our target customer profile is the fact that we are only one of a handful of lenders to offer small scale development finance not only in the North West but the UK, and this is undoubtedly a growing area of the market for us.
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“Customer projects range from new builds to conversions and refurbs. In a market where interest rates are rising we are holding our rates, building consumer confidence and gaining further credibility.
“Currently, development loans account for roughly 50% of our business, and we see that trend growing. Once again, we’ve increased turnover against last year and expect this to continue into 2024 – development finance will definitely help us realise these goals.”