Strength of specialist lending sector shines through during 2020

Technically, the silly season starts tomorrow, the first day of December. Not that there’ll be much in the way of silly going on, of course, given the ongoing lockdown and new Tier system that starts mid-week. For the vast majority of us, the Christmas work party has been kicked firmly into the long grass.

2020, which is drawing to a close, has been anything but silly, of course, especially for those who have lost loved ones or been seriously ill as a result of Covid-19. Thankfully, a vaccine seems relatively imminent and things should hopefully start returning to normal during 2021. Fingers and everything else crossed. 

That said, and even during the 6-7 weeks of hard lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, the specialist lending sector has proved exceptionally resilient this year, and we should all be proud of what’s been achieved. 

Unsurprisingly for an industry that is known for its agility, the specialist lending sector adapted rapidly to the new normal and remote working in particular. We even managed to get a number of deals completed in late March and April when the pandemic was at its peak. When the property market reopened in mid-May, the deals started flowing once again and have picked up speed ever since.

Over the summer, we even managed to soft launch our new Buy-to-Let product, which has been a massive success with brokers around the country. At a time when stress testing rules are seeing landlords hit all manner of issues on the high street, our own ZERO stress testing approach has been a breath of fresh air.

The product, with a pay rate from just 3.99% and no ERCs payable in the final two years of the term, provides a flexibility that is simply unavailable elsewhere in the market. Reflecting this flexibility, it is even available to first time buyers, foreign nationals and limited companies.

Lastly, this year we have made the decision that, instead of giving gifts to our brokers and partners we are going to donate the money we usually spend to four chosen charities on their behalf. The charities are Grief Encounter, Barnardo’s, CW+ and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Many children have had a tough year of it during 2020 and we hope these donations help to make a difference.

We’ll be in touch during December with a final round-up of 2020 but in the meantime, we’re wishing the best of health to all our introducers and partners and a great - and hopefully relaxing - Christmas. After the trials and tribulations of this year, we certainly all need it.