October appears to have been a very profitable month for bridging professionals, as completions smashed September’s 2012 record of £27,561,000 with lending totalling £31,703,000.

12 prominent loan distributors, sourced within the AOBP membership, cast out enquiries which subsequently completed to more lenders than ever before. 

The total number of individual lenders on the October table is up to 15 and those in the Private Funders category have lent a staggering £19,974,000.

The report stated: “The Private Funders category consists of bridging finance financiers that do not fall into any particular known firm or ‘lender’, per se. Independent investors and high net worth individuals will not only fund certain deals which are outside the remit of banks and established short term lenders, but may also take an even more pragmatic approach to lending, due to availability and access to funds and experience.

“Over the course of the AOBP Market Report’s existence, we have seen the private funders category continually lead the way in terms of volume, which suggests that packagers and brokers continue to utilise this varied resource for their bridging needs, despite an ever-growing choice of short term lenders.

“The majority of lenders featured took a dip in volume levels. One exception is Shawbrook Bank which has come in at third with £1,431,000.  Second from the top is Dragonfly Property Finance with £1,495,000 and Masthaven emerges victorious with £1,797,000.

“MTF (formerly MT Finance) are welcomed back on to the table with a substantial £1,089,000 lent, while London-based Glenmore Capital and Saffron Building Society make their debut onto the October Market Report.”

Regulated business dropped by 9.24 per cent, despite over half of the featured lenders being FSA authorised.

Table to show regulated v unregulated cases during October 2012*

*The results shown above are calculated using a significant data set of the AOBP members and are processed by independent auditors. The results are based on a sample data set of the short term lending market and are in no way representative of the short term industry as a whole.

The next January AOBP Market report will summarise November and December’s bridging business in a bumper Q4 issue.