Members of the Association of Bridging Professionals (AOBP) recorded almost £40 million of bridging completions at the close of 2012, the trade body’s latest Market Report has found.

November and December 2012 saw £39.9 million worth of bridging completions brought in by 15 of the AOBP’s Associate Lenders through a selection of packagers.

The total marked a significant decrease, however, when compared with October’s highest ever monthly total of £31.7 million of short term completions.

Intermediary-only lender Precise Mortgages topped the Association’s lending table, recording bridging deals which totalled £6,489,000 in the two months and completing 23.4 per cent of all cases.

United Trust Bank placed £5.2 million of bridging cases, while Dragonfly Property Finance completed the third highest value of cases, with £3.7 million of deals signed off.

Despite the fact that private funders were responsible for £13 million of deals that the AOBP’s packagers recorded, the top three individual lenders’ funding combined exceeded this total, a feat which has rarely been seen in the AOBP’s statistics.*

London-based development specialist Regentsmead was present on the table for the first time, while Glenmore capital relinquished its position at the end of 2012.

Perhaps due to the fact that the top three lenders in the table are FSA-authorised, regulated business was up by almost 10 per cent from October’s recorded levels.

A short December might well have been a contributing factor to the drop in total completions recorded in the report, though the AOBP cited that it was perhaps true that the pool of brokers and distributors in the bridging sector was outgrowing what could be represented by its Market Report.

A statement from the Association read: “The AOBP feels that while its report sheds light in an arena where data was once very hard to come by, the production of gross lending figures in the short term finance market should be a responsibility shared by both trade bodies and lenders in particular. However, do continue to watch this space – the AOBP is dedicated to continuing its commitment to increasing transparency within bridging.”

*The AOBP’s statistics are calculated using a significant set of data received from Association members before being processed by independent auditors. The results of the report are based on a sample data set from the short term lending market and are not representative of the short term industry as a whole.