Consistent acceptance criteria and better legal response times are the main findings of a survey commissioned by Capital Bridging Finance Limited (CBFL), the City-based bridging lender.

The survey, conducted during December 2012 and January 2013, was part of CBFL’s plans to place its focus on its master broker relationships.

It is the first stage of a strategy that will see the emerging lender forge stronger relationships with distributors, brokers, valuers and most importantly, as the survey highlighted, its legal panel.

The lender has already started reviewing its legal and valuation panels as a direct consequence of broker comments.

SURVEY RESULTS:

- Out of eight publications, brokers voted Bridging & Commercial as their most popular publication choice.

- 96 per cent of respondents believed the short term lending market would continue to grow sustainably over the next three years, with the average loan size being over £250,000.

The survey also highlighted areas where lenders should not be complacent:

- 23 lenders were predominantly used by the targeted brokers in 2012 and the main requests made of those lenders were for:
1) Higher LTVs;
2) Longer terms; and
3) Wider loan acceptance criteria with flexibility and consistency.

- The five areas of the process which gave the master brokers most annoyance are:

1) Collating all the required information from the client to satisfy the different lenders’ needs;
2) Getting approval from lenders;
3) Communicating with lenders;
4) The introducing brokers’ lack of understanding of the individual lender’s processes; and
5) Speed of response from the solicitors.

62 per cent of all respondents also called for improvement in the solicitors’ performance.

Commenting on the results Keith Aldridge, Principal at Capital Bridging Finance, said: “It is vital that we seek the opinions of the serious brokers in the sector if we are to be confident that our objectives for 2013 can be achieved.

“The survey was an important element of our plans to establish stronger relationships with the brokers who are serious players in the market.

“As we expected, it has given us much food for thought and we are already reviewing our legal and valuation panels as a direct consequence of broker comments. And we’ll be publishing an ‘idiot’s guide’ to the CBFL process next month.

“Of course not all the items on the brokers’ wish list can be satisfied by all the lenders. CBFL now knows more about what the market demands and will, over time, modify our proposition with the further help of all our stakeholder partners, if it fits our model and supports our prudent and ethical approach.

“We have a big task on to support our targeted brokers and we are relishing the challenge. We will be repeating the exercise in the spring when the focus of the survey will be... ‘Are we getting better at delivering to your expectations (and you to ours!) Mr. Broker?’.”

Commenting on the survey, Gareth Butler, Commercial Manager at Watts Commercial Finance Ltd., based in Nantwich said: “We are confident that there is great potential in the sector and are delighted that Capital Bridging are seeking the views of those firms they are targeting as long term partners. Watts Commercial value relationships with lenders who listen... then take action.”