Almost half (44%) of retail investors want to enhance their exposure to the UK property market by other means than owning their own home, according to peer to peer lending platform Crowdstacker.

Whilst investor demand is strong due to the strong growth in the UK property market, many investors have been deterred from buying directly into bricks and mortar.

Over a third (36%) of investors have been put off the idea as they’re concerned about the risks involved with managing properties, whilst 30% have been discouraged to invest due to the hefty transaction costs.

However, this study revealed that 73% of investors would instead prefer to put their capital into a loan for developers, landlords and property professionals.

This kind of short-term lending in the property market has boomed in the last couple of years, increasing from £1.4 billion in 2013 to £3 billion.

Karteek Patel, CEO of Crowdstacker commented on this revolutionary way of lending: “Effectively this is an opportunity to ‘lend to a lender’ which is not only a market leader in its field, but which also operates in the buoyant property sector.”

“Investors are provided with an exciting opportunity to receive a market beating return by sharing in its success. Its short-term mortgages are secured on UK property at an historic average ‘Loan to Value’ (LTV) of 60%,” he added.