As usual our posts on this blog are reflecting our efforts to satisfy all of our clients in the most appropriate way despite what seems to be going on around us. This one was prompted by a comment from an architect at a breakfast meeting I was at today when he mentioned the number of single house building developments he is working on have soared.

We are often asked via our introducers and indeed via the enquiries on our website to help arrange funding for residential development projects and the first question we always ask is ”where is the project located?” – The answer often determines the level of support that the UK lenders are prepared to give.

The title says it all, there is indeed a huge portion of the UK that is north of Watford, but to the vast majority of the lenders that have set their stall out to support the UK development finance market, it might as well be another planet. Admittedly, the money seems to emanate from the South East and inside the M25 it appears that nothing can go wrong, are they being short sighted or just prudent?

On a recent exercise on a fairly chunky development proposition in the West Midlands, which is not quite the end of the world, we used the details of those current lenders in the UK, that have said they support development funding, gleaned from the latest copy of ‘The finance Book’ to find out whether they would even consider the application. The result – out of 28 lenders approached, only 2 were willing to quote anything near reasonable terms for the business with the high street lenders being particularly unwilling. The main response was “it is too far away”.

I don’t know the numbers but it wouldn’t surprise me if more people lived and worked ‘North of Watford’ than south of there, and they all have to live somewhere, so come on folks, the numbers might not be so big, but the market is, and the argument is always there that a range of smaller development projects across a wider series of locations does mean that the lenders are not putting all their eggs in one Country (Greece) basket.

If you do have a small residential development (Up to say 10 houses) ‘North of Watford’ do get in touch, because we now know who wants to play. You can contact us here