Opportunity for P2P platforms to capitalise on buoyant property market
Peer-to-peer lending platforms have an opportunity to take advantage of a buoyant property market that is continuing to perform well.
Property experts have continued to pour confidence into the property market, and P2P platforms are making a strong case for investors who are keen to benefit from rising property prices through bridging, development and buy-to-let loans.
New data from Savills has forecast that house prices will grow by 13.1 per cent by 2026. P2P property lending platform Crowdstacker said whilst this is a slower growth rate than the market has experienced over the last two years, it is still an indicator that the property market will continue to do well even in the face of potential interest rate rises.
Halifax has presented a similarly positive picture by revealing that the average house price in the UK has now hit an all-time high of £270,000, the equivalent of an eight per cent rise over the last year.
Meanwhile Rightmove has said it is confident that Boxing Day search numbers on the home buying and selling site may show a healthy growth as they did in 2020 when they increased by 54 per cent from 2019.
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“Mortgage rates have remained exceedingly low and talk of a base rate rise went unfounded at the last review by the Bank of England,” Crowdstacker said in a blog on its website.
“Despite clear expectations that this cannot continue meaning interest rates will go up, perhaps to as much as one per cent by the end of next year, the outlook for the UK property market looks solid according to three of the biggest names in the sector – Savills, Rightmove and Halifax.”
Justin Trowse, director of bridging finance at LendInvest, said that demand for good-quality housing has “never been so high”.
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“Record numbers of transactions at the start of this year didn’t alleviate Britain’s housing crisis – it shone more light on it,” he said in a blog on the bridging and buy-to-let lender’s website.
“The demand for good-quality housing has never been so high, and with the change in working cultures brought on by the pandemic, that demand has spread far and wide outside of traditional urban centres and into new and growing communities.
“Empowering developers, landlords and property investors to provide this housing – through either regeneration or enhancement of existing properties – is why we decided to launch our new, higher loan-to-value refurbishment product, to help these professionals meet the evolving market demands.”