West One’s latest Bridging Index has stated that gross annualized lending increased to £4.3bn in June, a 4.2% increase from June 2016’s figures, and approaching 2016’s pre-EU Referendum high of £4.4bn.
The latest edition of the quarterly report is the third consecutive edition to show growth in the market.
Stephen Wasserman (pictured), managing director of West One, said: “After a substantial dip in the market’s performance in the immediate aftermath of the Referendum, it’s obviously very encouraging that the bridging sector is seeing its third consecutive quarter of annualised growth. With this period including the significant political and economic volatility of Article 50 being issued, a snap general election that delivered a hung Parliament and then the formal initiation of Brexit negotiations, the continued recovery only serves to underpin the resilience of the bridging market.
At West One, we’ve seen a steady rise in demand for our bridging over the course of the last 9 months, and suspect this is due to more and more property professionals turning to alternative forms of finance, as a result of political uncertainty affecting appetite from conventional lenders. The drop in business in the wider market which followed in the aftermath of the Leave vote last June appears to have been only a blip, and has since been followed by a return to sustained growth. We expect that the bridging market will continue to this pattern of solid growth, in spite of an apparent slowdown in the housing market, as it takes up further slack in funding for property projects.”