Opportunities forecasted for property P2P post-Covid
Stakeholders have predicted new opportunities for peer-to-peer property lenders post-Brexit and Covid-19, such as tapping into areas in a deregulated Britain, launching an assurance policy and funding greener housebuilding.
Speaking at the P2P Investing Summit on Thursday, a virtual event hosted by Peer2Peer Finance News and AngelNews, Damien Druce, management consultant at Druce Consultancy and formerly director of intermediaries at Assetz Capital, said Brexit will lead to opportunities for the UK property market.
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“Ultimately there are people in government who really do believe in deregulation…and I think that’s where the opportunities lie in a deregulated Britain,” he said.
“A ‘Singapore on the Thames’ could create some fantastic upsides for the UK property market, to become a real superstate of high taxation, high earnings and high quality and it has potential upsides for the whole country.”
Terry Pritchard, director of Charter HCP, agreed and said there’s an opportunity for an assurance policy in the sector.
He told Peer2Peer Finance News that Charter HCP has used its assurance policy, which covers up to 80 per cent of the security backing a loan, for around a dozen bridging and development finance deals and plans on soon launching it in the P2P space.
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“We’ll be launching that in the P2P area in the not-too-distant future,” Pritchard said in the webinar.
Paul Sonabend, executive chairman of P2P property lending platform Relendex, said the British economy is in as good a place as any in Europe and sees a huge opportunity in funding more environmentally-friendly housebuilding.
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“We work with very environmentally conscious builders who are ahead of the game and we can definitely see our emphasis going forward will be on a greener build back which will create enormous opportunity,” he said.
“I can see enormous opportunities there. I think the returns will come down in order to encourage homebuilders to adopt the best techniques which are more expensive. They will need access to cheaper finance and I think institutions and others will have ethical funds.
“Although the returns may be lower, I have a strong suspicion money will be there, I very much think this will be a growth area.”