Knowledge Bank

Regulated bridging tops broker searches in May




‘Regulated bridging’ continues to dominate brokers’ searches, with the term reaching the top spot in Knowledge Bank’s latest tracker results in May.

This is potentially due to buyers using bridging finance when a property chain has broken down, or to purchase a residential property at auction.

The prominence of regulated bridging suggests there are some looking to benefit from the stamp duty holiday and are using bridging to help sales go through in time for the June deadline.

‘Maximum LTV’ was the second most searched term, followed by ‘minimum loan amount’, ‘minimum property value’ and ‘commercial property’ in the third, fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

For commercial finance searches, ‘semi-commercial properties’ continued to be the most popular term last month, followed by ‘maximum LTV’.

In the BTL market, ‘first-time landlord’ continued to garner interest from brokers, with it topping the list of searches.

The term has been either the most or second most searched for criteria by brokers every month this year, highlighting the UK’s interest in owning a BTL property, which may have become possible for more people as a result of increased savings due to the pandemic.

‘Lending to limited companies’ also remained a constant, featuring every month since the tracker began in July 2018.

Commenting on the latest results, Matthew Corker, operations director at Knowledge Bank (pictured above), said: “The BTL sector continues to go from strength-to-strength, with interest from those new to the sector and to house buying. 

“With the market continuing to change at a rapid pace, criteria are constantly evolving and brokers could spend hours every day on the phone to lenders and updating spreadsheets. 

“Using a comprehensive criteria search system can save them a massive amount of time and also ensure they are providing best advice.”

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