United Trust Bank was approached to refinance two developments built by a very experienced developer for whom we had previously funded a site of 15 homes.
The first of the two schemes in this proposal was of seven luxury apartments and two houses in a private, gated development in North London. Set within two and a half acres of exclusive parkland grounds, the location enjoys views across London and excellent transport links with a 30 minute commute to Kings Cross and the M25 just a three mile drive away.
At the time of being approached, all of the apartments were complete but the two houses required finishing works which included installing kitchens, landscaping and internal decoration with a total cost of around £100k. The sales agents had advised the developer that due to the luxury nature of the scheme, the site should be complete before commencing marketing.
The second development comprised 10 luxury mews houses close to a picturesque village in the Kent Downs area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. All of the homes were complete and three of the units had already been sold. The combined projected sales value of the remaining units on both sites was circa £15.8m.
The developer was keen to repay his expensive stretched senior debts on both sites, the facilities for which were for development only and restricted the time he had to achieve sales. Being luxury homes, the properties required the proper marketing in order to give the agents the best chance of realising their projected sales values and many of the likely purchasers would be down sizers who would also need to sell their own homes in order to proceed.
By refinancing both sites the developer would give himself a longer sales period in order to maximise the prices he could achieve and at the same time reduce his funding costs whilst the homes were marketed and sold.
Loan Amount circa £8.8m over 12 months – CTV 56%