The government backed platform introduced its property offering to investors in November 2013 and is now witnessing very promising results. Despite the November introduction, 6 months were spent researching and refining the proposition and the first of these loans were listed on the platform in mid April. Funding Circle offers a broad range of real estate finance loans – ranging from lending for development, buy to let mortgages or buy to let re-mortgages. As of 30th July Funding Circle had provided over £6 million for property-backed facilities.
The average loan amount is reported to be between £800,000 and £1.2 million, with residential development facilities constituting approximately 70 per cent of the £6 million figure. The average lifetime of these loans varies between twelve and twenty four months.
Luke Jooste, Head of Real Estate Finance at Funding Circle, commented:
“It just shows how much pent up demand there is in the property market. Which is the reason why we provide such a service.”
“In the property space the peer to-peer platform is a credible player in the market.”
It’s the luxury of the major platforms to branch out into new and exciting fields. Platforms like Funding Circle have the brand awareness and the investor base to pull off this kind of move – similar to Zopa’s dabbling in business lending. Funding Circle has a way to go to catch up to the likes of LendInvest in the property lending space – but there’s nothing to suggest that it couldn’t happen given the platform’s global reputation.
