As a lending platform, having our content published in an award-winning industry magazine like Commercial Finance Broker, spearheaded by the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB), is a fantastic opportunity for us to communicate with our intermediary partners, the lifeblood of our business. The NACFB is a leading trade body in the United Kingdom dedicated to promoting the interests of commercial finance brokers and their clients. With a history spanning several decades, the NACFB has earned a reputation for its commitment to excellence and professionalism in the commercial finance sector.
Being featured in Commercial Finance Broker signifies our alignment with the industry's highest standards. It serves as a testament to our expertise, credibility, and contribution to the field of commercial finance. The magazine's recognition as an award-winning publication underscores its significance as a trusted source of information and insights for industry professionals and stakeholders. As a respected trade body, the NACFB's stamp of approval validates our contributions to the industry and underscores our adherence to the highest standards of professionalism and ethical conduct. It's also a great read, filled with viable insight from our friends and peer group.
In this latest edition, we have contributed to the Industry Insights debate on housing, referring to some of our previously published work on the Greybelt and how the landscape of the development market is changing to combat the needs of the housing crisis. We theorised that the concept of a "Greybelt" is a bit of a misnomer; it doesn't exist, albeit it references to areas of the Greenbelt that perhaps should be utilised potentially for housing due to elements of it previously having been developed, alongside the land banking of brownfield sites, there will be significant political pressure in the coming months and years to confront councils and change the way that decisions are made.
When this piece was written, the demand for land was front and centre in the crosshairs of the media, and that situation hasn't really changed; our core argument, citing research by Knight Frank, was that 11,000 previously developed sites within the Greenbelt could be utilised to produce 200,000 homes. The opening up of available land will have a quantifiable effect on land acquisition as it will flatten out price inflation and open opportunities for fledgling home builders, the types of enterprises heavily supported by the alternative lending market; essentially, it wouldn't be a quick fix, but it would be a potential political and practical solution to be explored.
To read more in the magazine, please click the link below and find us on page 34.
Since the publication of that piece, it seems apparent that two significant things may happen with homebuilding in the UK: the scale of the commercial opportunity may draw in players from outside of the traditional homebuilding space, who can use their balance sheet power to partner directly with the existing sizeable developers, and secondly, there will need to be creative thinking at play in order to facilitate the space, it may need to go far beyond the Greybelt, into residential commercial hybrid environments, as the nature of our cities evolve forever. One story that caught our eye this week is that Asda has become the latest supermarket to enter the London Property development business, with plans to build 1500 homes on the roof of an Asda Superstore at Park Royal. It's very reminiscent of when Ray Kroc was informed by his lawyer that he wasn't in the burger business; he was in the Real Estate business (although that may have been from a movie about McDonald's rather than an actual quote).
Is there a future here where we see mass hybridisation of office, retail, and home, simply due to the limitations of space? We have witnessed permitted development town planning slowly phase us out of the 1980s open plan office model, urban regeneration creating new takes on city centre living, we have seen the industrial structures of the Victorian era repurposed into modern day homesteads, so far as to the visual association of a Milhouse is now a home for people under a certain age rather than commodity production, but how far will this go?
Necessity will soon change the UK housing market in ways we have yet to imagine, and successful businesses must adapt. We are closer to the market's needs and demands than our institutional counterparties, and by the nature of our very existence, we aren't dissuaded by change; we are rooted in a culture of innovation, not infrastructure, ideally suited to these changing times.
Invest & Fund has returned over £200 million of capital and interest to lenders with zero losses, showing the rigour that governs our business.
To take maximum advantage of this robust and exciting asset class, please visit www.investandfund.com or contact Shaheel at shaheel@investandfund.com.
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