Developers and intermediaries spend 70 hours searching for loans
Property developers and intermediaries are set to lose the equivalent of 14,500 days searching and applying for loans in 2022, new analysis has shown.
According to development finance comparison site Brickflow, the average developer or intermediary spends around 70 hours searching for development finance and completing a funding application.
Brickflow’s co-founder and head of lending Ian Humphreys has estimated that developers and intermediaries spend almost a third of their time searching for development finance.
He pointed out that while it traditionally takes around 70 hours to search for lenders and complete a development finance application, the Brickflow platform helps small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) developers perform the same task in 20 hours or less.
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“Development finance lending topped £9.3bn in 2020 and if we assume an average loan figure is £4m, it equates to 2,325 development finance applications taking 50 hours longer than necessary,” said Humphreys.
“When you divide this by an eight hour day, it’s a staggering loss of time.
“Add to this the frustration of nearly one in three SME house builders citing a lack of finance as one of the biggest barriers to progressing projects and it’s clear Brickflow is a no-brainer.”
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Brickflow launched in December 2020 and counts CapitalRise, CrowdProperty, LendInvest and Assetz Capital among its lending partners.
It uses algorithms to search over 120 data points across 36 lenders, presenting finance options within two minutes.
Developers can then choose their preferable lending options, use online onboarding tools and access expert help, where necessary, to complete applications which can be sent to up to five lenders.
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