Who am I ?

For those of you that do not know me, I have worked on both sides of the fence, meaning I’ve been a broker and lender. Having worked in both fields I have a more balanced view of the problems faced by the industry as a whole. Although in some people’s eyes the situation is ranging from cold and bleak to sub-zero, in my opinion there are some real positives around for the specialist lending markets at the moment.

The UK has become a country which struggles to compete as a manufacturing nation despite some game attempts. This trend has been apparent for a number of years, which mean our service and financial sectors have had to develop in order to support the economy. In turn, this means that whilst credit is tight with traditional lending, those in the specialist lending arena will be a beacon of light to both intermediaries and their clients for the next few years.

The one thing that we must be careful of is pricing, as pricing against risk will dominate the judging criteria among regulators. So lenders, we must make sure that we consider what has happened over the past few years, and get the risk pricing right whilst still being commercially aware of your business costs and needs.

Talking more about lenders, I would be interested to hear the views of the intermediary market in general, regarding their experiences with some of the new entrants against some of the older more traditional specialist lenders.

Companies like Dragonfly (formerly Drawbridge), Precise (about to launch), borro (short term asset finance specialist) and Omni Capital, have all brought some new and fresh ideas to the market. However, many others have continued to lend in the traditional and straightforward bridging manner. 

These traditional methods have been relatively easy to execute, but may not have the flexibility or appeal of some of the others mentioned.

I would like to build up a database of feedback on the lenders as a group, and give them some help in designing more appropriate products, along with making their service as broker friendly as possible.     

Please do let me have your thoughts if you want things to continue to improve.

The funny story... 

Finally, I was dropped a note from Katie telling me to round-off this piece with a funny story from my week. However, considering last week was a bit of a disaster and nothing very funny happened I thought I might just remind everyone how important always being nice to people you don’t know is, and how it can affect your business if you live by that rule.

Whilst I was in the Westbury Hotel in London writing some notes up for a meeting, I took a call from a colleague regarding some buy-to-let properties and gave him the information required. When I finished, the guy at the bar (did I forget to mention the bar bit?) next to me knocked my drink onto my laptop, causing a bit of an incident. He obviously apologised and rather than react I was very polite and we had a drink together, and chatted for a while.

As it turns out, he had overheard my conversation and wanted to buy several properties on a similar basis to those I had been on the phone about. Following that chance meeting one of the consultants visited the guy at the weekend and has forty buy-to-let applications to complete at about a 40 per cent LTV. It just goes to show that my strategy of hanging around bars and being nice to people paid off eventually.

All I need now is a new liver and a diet. Oh, and not to have to do it for another twenty years for it to happen again.

Have a great week,

Terry