Capital Value Surveyors will serve London and the South East providing residential and commercial valuation services for various purposes, but concentrating on secured lending.

The London-based firm has been launched by co-directors Sean Mansfield and Simon Jackson.

Sean was previously a director at London’s Surveyors and Valuers, while Simon was most recently a partner at the Bowen Partnership. 

Explaining the reasons behind launching Capital Value Surveyors, Sean felt that long gone were the days when a lender was willing to wait five to 10 working days for a valuation, especially with more specialist and bridging lenders entering the market.

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“We recognise the need for speed without sacrificing the most important element of all: accuracy. 

“We feel the short-term lending market is probably the most interesting sector at present and the deals we are seeing are far more varied than the typical cases mainstream lenders and private banks tend to involve themselves in. 

“Bridging is no longer a ‘dirty word’ and we want to be part of this and feel that we can make a necessary contribution by being accurate, fast and accessible to our clients seven days a week.”

In order to speed up the valuation process, Capital Value gathers all the site information using a tablet-based system, instantly syncing on its cloud network which its typist can pick up and begin working on.

“We tend to operate outside of normal working hours, which helps tremendously during the longer summer days so by the time we arrive back home to conduct our valuation research (usually before midday), the bones of our reports are often already in place,” said Sean.

“This gives us a head start on producing our reports in a time where time is of the essence and every hour saved can make a difference.”

Sean said its short-term aim was to establish itself in the marketplace and forge a strong reputation for delivering on its promises. 

“We feel the shift in the type of lending needs a change in culture among surveyors and valuers and in deals where hours can make the difference, we need to be available out of office hours and certainly seven days a week. 

“We would like to create a small, hungry, but focused team of like-minded people to be at the forefront of what we think can be an exciting, albeit challenging, time for the industry. 

“We are extremely hopeful that by doing so, it will stand us in good stead for what could be an interesting few years.”

Capital Value will also be launching a podcast in the coming months which will discuss its experiences and also the market in general.