Mint reports surge in development deals

Speaking to Bridging & Commercial, Adam Robson, underwriter at Mint Bridging (pictured above), said the lender was expanding due to the amount of loans it was funding.

“We have had a fantastic start to the year, and have just recorded one of our best-ever months.

“We have seen a large influx of development deals coming to us at present.

“However, we have fully trained development lending staff, as well as our team of QSs on standby 24/7 to sort these.”

Last week, Mint announced that it would be launching a free valuations offer, while it has also opened a new office in MediaCityUK for its sales team. 

“We plan to continue doing what we’re good at: offering handcrafted, creative solutions and delivering an outstanding customer service and work ethic to our clients,” added Adam.

“We don’t have lending targets which we strive to hit each month.

“We won’t complete a ‘deal’ just to put some numbers on the books.”

Adam also revealed where Mint was seeing most of its business take place.

“I would estimate that more than half of our loans are funded within the South East, which surprises some people given that we are based in the North West. 

“The sales team has networked heavily down south, and since we have high referral conversions, it would make sense that we’re getting more business in this region.”

Adam said that Mint did not concentrate on what its competitors or new lenders were offering as he assessed the situation of the current bridging finance market.

“Success in the marketplace is really dependent on lenders doing what they say they are going to do.

“We’ve seen cases whereby we’ve been asked to rescue a borrower due to a late withdrawal by another bridging lender.

“You can only do that so many times before your reputation begins to be tarnished, which will inevitably have a negative impact on your company.”

Adam also felt that the bridging finance market was becoming more popular and this was evident through the increase in applications it had seen.

“It’s apparent that people are starting to look for an alternative to the mainstream banks due to the speed and flexibility that bridging finance can offer.

“This is a huge advantage for bridging lenders.”