Cambridge & Counties reports 41% rise in property lending balances

The challenger bank reported an increase of £167m on its total for 2015, marking a 41% rise.

The news comes after Cambridge & Counties announced a profit before tax of £18.1m, a 77% increase on the £10.2m achieved in 2015.

Cambridge & Counties also saw record annual growth in deposits, lending and customer acquisition for the year ending 31^st December 2016.

Simon Lindley, commercial director at Cambridge & Counties Bank (pictured above), felt that its customer-centric manual underwriting and strong focus on customer service had been key to the success of its real estate loans business.

“We have also focused on the professional and corporate property investment sector, and avoided the high-risk second mortgage, development and amateur buy-to-let markets.

“In terms of what we are seeing in the market, the continued redevelopment of office accommodation under permitted development rights continues apace, and action taken by the government and the Bank of England saw transactions in the buy-to-let market tail off considerably towards the latter half of 2016.”

The bank saw the average size of its real estate finance loans increase as it continued to support professional and corporate landlords in both the commercial and residential market.

Looking to the future, Simon added: “Uncertainty following the Brexit vote saw a number of larger property deals stall, but take up eventually happened, and the general UK property business continues to show a measure of resilience in the face [of] relatively unattractive returns from other asset classes.”

In January this year, Cambridge & Counties partnered with Finance 4 Business to complete its biggest loan to date after refinancing a converted landmark Birmingham building.