The Intermediary – September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 33
BUY-TO-LET
In focus
Stop calling it
a last resort
Very few investors today are simply
buying a finished product and holding
it as is. Most are buying something
with headroom in it, even if that just
means a lick of paint, a new kitchen
front, some kerb appeal, geing a
tenant in, and only then thinking
about how to finance it long-term.
Refinance aer the works are done
and the property is let, and you’re
refinancing against the new, higher
value you’ve just created, not the
price you paid for it. Do that well,
and it’s entirely possible to pull out
your full purchase costs and your
refurbishment spend, leaving a
fraction of your own capital still tied
up in the deal.
It’s exactly the strategy we built
our 85% light refurbishment product
for. It funds both the purchase and
the works in one facility, up to 85%,
so investors aren’t drip-feeding cash
out of their own pocket mid-project to
get the kitchen or bathroom finished
before they can let it.
Buy, refurbish, let, refinance – all
funded through the same relationship,
without ever needing to touch a long
term product until the asset is actually
ready for one.
Now compare that to going straight
to a long-term mortgage at the point
of purchase, which is what a lot of
landlords still default to out of habit.
You’re locking into a rate, a product,
and – this is the part that catches
people out – early repayment charges
(ERCs), oen running for years,
before you’ve done a single day’s work
on the property or established what
it’s really worth once it’s improved
and tenanted. Discover six months
later that the uplied value and
rental income would qualify you for
a materially beer rate, or that you’d
rather pull equity out to fund the next
purchase, and you’re either stuck,
or paying to get out of the deal you
rushed into.
Bridging keeps that decision where
it belongs: at the end of the process,
not the start. Buy the asset, do the
work, get it earning, and only then
commit to the long-term loan that
actually fits the property as it stands,
not as it stood on completion day.
Not just one deal
There’s a second, less talked about
advantage: velocity. Portfolio growth
is a function of how many good deals
you can complete in a year, not how
cheap each individual pound of debt is.
A landlord who can turn
opportunities around in days rather
than months isn’t just winning
individual properties, they’re
compounding. Buy, add value or
season the asset, refinance onto a term
product, redeploy the capital, repeat.
The investors scaling fastest right
now aren’t necessarily the best
capitalised. They’re the ones who’ve
removed speed as a constraint.
We built our proposition around
exactly this problem: geing
capital to investors at the speed the
market actually demands. We can
get purchases completed within
days when it counts, because we’ve
stripped out the friction that slows
other lenders down, starting with
valuations. Our flexible valuation
options, including AVMs and desktop
valuations, mean we’re not waiting
weeks for a physical inspection to
move a case forward. That’s oen the
single biggest boleneck in a bridging
transaction, and it’s one we’ve
largely engineered out. The other
shi is around how much we’ll lend
against a genuinely well-negotiated
purchase. We recently launched our
BMV product, which allows investors
who’ve done the legwork, sourced a
deal, negotiated hard, secured a real
below market value price, to borrow
up to 90% of the purchase price.
If you’ve earned the discount, we
think you should be able to leverage
it, rather than having your own
negotiating skill diluted by a lender
who only wants to work off valuation.
A matter of intent
The real risk isn’t using bridging. It’s
not using it.
None of this is a case for reckless
borrowing, bridging is a tool for
investors with a clear exit, whether
that’s a refinance, a sale, or a
refurbishment programme with a
defined timeline. Used without a plan,
any short-term debt is a liability.
Used with intent, and underwrien
properly from day one, it’s arguably
the single most underrated lever a
landlord has: it changes how sellers
see you, it changes how fast you
can act, and it changes how much
of your own cash you need to tie up
per property.
The investors building serious
portfolios right now aren’t the ones
avoiding bridging because it ‘costs
more’. They’re the ones who’ve worked
out that being able to act like a cash
buyer, complete in days, and leverage a
well-negotiated price is worth far more
than the interest it costs to get there.
If you’re still treating bridging as a
last resort, you’re not being cautious.
You’re leaving deals, and discounts, on
the table for someone else to pick up. ●
September 2026 | The Intermediary
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