Nick Dulson needed a lender who shared his vision for a barn conversion scheme near Oswestry on the Welsh borders. One part built, another very derelict and without detailed planning permission and surrounded by land that also needed planning to realise its full value.
Martin Murphy, Lending Director at Peer-to-Peer real estate lender Relendex Limited, was introduced to Nick Dulson by one of Relendex’s very valued independent commercial finance brokers, Dave Chesters of Complete Business Solutions. Martin recalls: “I have worked with Dave for many years and he often has great clients and he puts in the right level of work on proposals to make our life easier. He told me it wasn’t the most straight forward of schemes, but I was sufficiently encouraged by the track record of the developer to go with Dave’s recommendation to meet the guys on site, something we do on every deal we fund, and so it was off to Shropshire.”
Nick Dulson and his father, Derrick, have been developing in Shropshire for over 40 years across both residential and commercial sectors. As with a lot of developers they had a painful experience during the crash and at the request of their principal lenders at the time had to dispose of a number of assets they had worked very hard to build up over many years. But development is in their blood and not to be deterred they carried on doing what Martin saw for himself they did very well. “I was immediately impressed by their development experience in the local area and some of their other schemes. It was obvious that this was their patch and they had their finger on the pulse of the local market and I was keen to support them.”
But the deal was not without its issues – part built, issues with access, without full planning on one of the properties and in a semi-rural location. But Relendex put in its own hard work, together with its advisors, to get itself comfortable with each of the risk aspects and the local market sufficient to believe that this was a deal their peer-to-peer lenders would like, which they certainly did, and Relendex closed the deal a couple of weeks after the successful fundraising auction.
Relendex makes its loans available to its lenders during a standard two week fundraising period but such is its liquidity at the moment and the interest amongst its ever expanding lender numbers that they are closing funding often much quicker and sometimes in a matter of only days. As a result, they are also now front running legals to shorten the period from funding close to legal close wherever possible.
Nick Dulson was certainly happy with the whole process. “We knew that if we had taken this deal to the mainstream lenders we wouldn’t be where we are today with the farmhouse and barn both finished, one of them about to change hands, and having the planning in place for the next phase. Relendex have been great to deal with, very supportive and very professional. We have been in property development as a family for many years and have seen it through a number of phases, good and bad, but Martin also brings his own 25 years plus of banking and property finance experience to the deal and that gave us the confidence we had chosen the right lender and we have nothing but praise for the way Relendex has dealt with this from start to finish. We also have to thank our broker, Dave Chesters for bringing us together as without him we may not have come across Relendex and the peer-to-peer funding option”.
Relendex certainly values its close ties with its broker partners. “Brokers like Dave are our life-blood and without them we would find it harder to meet great clients like Nick and Derrick. "We have the team in place now to help us hit our strong growth targets for 2019 and beyond and look forward to forging closer relationships and doing more business with our broker partners”. Since the 2008 financial crisis, SME housebuilders like the Dulsons, previously so critical to creating the nation’s housing stock, have been left starved of cash by lenders who have largely pulled out of this market. Meanwhile, the vast majority of UK savers are losing money in savings accounts that pay well below the rate of inflation. Through its peer-to-peer commercial real estate lending platform
Relendex is looking to harness one problem to solve the other. By opening the advantages of secured property lending to all, Relendex facilitates the financing of property developments and refurbishments throughout the UK and is contributing to the alleviation of the housing shortage.
