

SELF BUILD MORTGAGES
Someone seeking to build their own home is a specialist area that many firms struggle to advise upon. For ourselves, the requirement straddles two of our main strengths so we are perfectly positioned to advise upon all funding elements as well as the many other considerations in terms of the design and construction process.
Our development finance offering emanates from advising families who are having their own house built and is now one of the most active development finance brokers in the region, so our knowledge of self build finance is well embedded.
In development funding the primary considerations are the ability to deliver the project and that the proposition will create enough value to pay back the debt and produce profit. Self build mortgages have the added requirement of a borrowers ability to service the debt. This means that it falls within the regulated mortgage environment, so all the considerations that our private client business encounters on a daily basis.
Pricing is higher for development funding than a normal mortgage because there is both construction risk and it is more labour intensive for a Funder throughout the build. There are also ancillary costs of surveyors, lawyers and valuers that can add significant costs to the entire funding package.
As with all strands of finance, each lender has different approaches to assess any proposition and indeed how they manage and price a project. Our constant activity in the sector means we can swiftly establish where the right home is and bring clarification of a process to our client extremely quickly.
Typically clients aspiring to build their own home are sophisticated and successful people entering this new arena. It is rare we simply raise the funding and much more common for us to hold the hand through the process, at least up until the construction is fully underway.
We have a range of relationships that we also introduce to ensure the process is the enjoyable one it is meant to me as opposed to turning into the nightmare that it can. These include Architects, Surveyors, Contractors and Lawyers.