Adam Davies

Westgate Private Finance enters Scottish market




Westgate Private Finance has revealed that it now provides bridging loans in Scotland.

Speaking to Bridging & Commercial, Adam Davies, CEO at Westgate Private Finance (pictured above), claimed that the lender was picking up a lot of the smaller deals in the region that other lenders weren’t doing.

Westgate offers a ‘fix and flip’ product, with a sweet spot including properties valued between £110,000 and £160,000 at point of purchase.

It will fund up to 100% of the renovation costs of the property in advance stages, subject to a maximum LTV of 80% on day one.

Its first client has now sold their property, having purchased a two-bedroom house in Cardiff for £135,000 and selling it for £223,500.

Westgate entered the Scottish market in April, and Adam said there had been a positive response to its offering.

He described the Scottish government’s Empty Homes scheme as “amazing” from Westgate’s perspective as a bridging lender.

The scheme allows renovators to refurbish uninhabitable properties and then sell them to the council. 

Both South and North Ayrshire councils run these buyback schemes, with others also participating.

Councils use the empty homes loan fund for this, but some have also used part of the levy raised by reducing the discount on council tax on empty homes as funding for this initiative.

Adam said the scheme was making the Scottish market “appealing”.

“At the moment, [renovators] can't necessarily get loans on properties [in the state that] we'll lend on.

“So, [they’ll] buy something which is an absolute wreck of a place, then spend some money on it, fix it and then you've got your clear exit to sell to the council.”

Westgate has now hired Robin Rourke as a BDM for the area and plans to take on further BDMs in the Midlands and the South later this year.

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