With a growing number of property investors using short-term bridging finance to buy property, June was a landmark for many specialist lenders, including West One Loans, which smashed its previous monthly record of £53m of bridging loans, to lend £62m last month to finance a range of deals, including commercial and residential property acquisitions.

Total loans under management by West One Loans now exceeds £400m, illustrating the fact that more property investors are increasingly using bridging finance as a viable financial tool to provide real time funding to plug any gap before longer term finance can be put in place. 

West One, which recently announced that it will be launching a second charge term-lending mortgage range in Q3 this year, as part of broadening their reach into other areas of the specialist lending arena, completed more than 70 transactions last month.

Stephen Wasserman, Managing Director of West One Loans, commented: “June was another record month for us, with £62m provided to fund both residential and commercial property loans. The market is growing and remains active, with a solid base of transactions in the market-place, suggesting it’s in a robust position.”

“We’re proud to be able to help so many borrowers with the financing they need, and excited to continue this further with the launch of our second charge mortgages in the near future,” he added.

West One’s own Bridging Index shows that gross annual lending across the sector grew steadily to £4.2bn in Q1, following a significant drop in the latter part of last year after the EU referendum vote, with this gentle growth anticipated for the remainder of 2017.