As confidence increases in the commercial property market, our brokers are reporting a growing desire amongst clients to expand their portfolios, or consolidate their position in the market by renovating and upgrading their property.

It seems that more and more tempting opportunities are presenting themselves to investors throughout the UK – clearly good news after the challenging years of late. However, exploiting new investment prospects is not as straightforward as it has been. Some of the most exciting opportunities are no longer simple mainstream buy-to-let (BTL) arrangements. Brokers are instead seeing demand from investors looking at HMOs, multi-units and mixed used commercial expansion.

Whilst the more complicated nature of these properties will not deter experienced clients, they can face a significant challenge when it comes to securing the funding required. Each week we hear from brokers whose clients are still struggling to obtain finance for properties that are considered more complex, or which don’t meet the strict BTL criteria. Some investors believe they have hit a brick wall or exhausted all options when they reach the limit of the number of properties they can lend against.

Fortunately, options do exist. New specialists like Shawbrook have been quick to recognise the need for lenders that take the more tailored approach needed for complex cases. Indeed, when we launched Shawbrook we made a very conscious decision to develop a lending proposition for the property investor market that would embrace professional investors with large property portfolios or those with non-standard properties, including multi-units.