One Step Ahead

Helping clients navigate their way through the specialist finance market is what Prospero Finance does best, as Nadia Simons discovers

As the name implies, the specialist finance market is not an arena to enter without the highest level of knowledge and experience. Too many property investors find themselves paying higher finance costs than they should, or worse still, the incorrect type of finance when purchasing or refinancing their next property development project, with no means of extricating themselves from the financial agreement. It’s critical that anyone looking at this type of finance should have the correct broker in their corner, which is where Prospero Finance are making a name for themselves, both with clients and lenders.

The business was started in 2016 by Martin Smedley, a finance broker with over 30 years’ experience and James Relph, owner of a wealth management business, with an idea to provide mutual services to their wealth management clients, whilst looking to establish a name in the property development arena. The team at Prospero Finance have since built a successful reputation for helping clients achieve the most suitable type of finance for their project, which has helped them become preferred partners with a number of lenders, in particular specialist providers.

The company’s bridging finance team are able to arrange some of the best value, bespoke bridging facilities on the market. In addition, they can arrange a streamlined exit on the bridging loan as and when required, with bespoke terms not readily available on the wider market, giving clients the peace of mind of having a suitable exit strategy set up prior to completion.

One of their latest contracts, saw an investor remortgage two existing properties, both valued at over £2m, in order to raise equity to allow them to convert an old assembly hall into flats. Both of the existing mortgages were already with a specialist lender who would only negotiate with a broker that had the appropriate level of expertise to ensure the contract exchange completed swiftly.

The relationships that Prospero develop with their clients, mean that the company is now seen as the ‘go to’ broker of choice for specialist finance. This bespoke level of service was further highlighted when an existing client, fresh from receiving 100% funding by using additional security to acquire a mixed-use commercial property, with plans to convert the whole building to self-contained residential flats, has now returned with an even larger project that requires finance to build 72 homes.

Although bridging and development finance is a large part of Prospero’s focus, Prospero Finance can also help clients with Buy to Let, House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO’s) and residential mortgages.

If you wish to find out more about how Prospero Finance can assist with obtaining the correct structures for development or purchase finance, contact enquiries@prosperofinance.co.uk