Commercial Loan - update

Finance offerings in the commercial loan market place continues to change weekly.

Just recently we have been informed of changes to either prices or criteria in the following commercial areas:-

Price increases in the cost of equipment leasing from a number of lenders.

In the short term leasehold business sector one of the main lenders has pulled out of the market.

A major bridging loan lender has announced slight price reductions accompanied by a large reduction in what they will lend against property values.

It goes without saying that virtually all high geared property development loan lenders have either greatly tightened their lending criteria or are sitting on their hands!

Commercial deals can still be placed but overall the quality of any business finance proposal submitted by either brokers or borrowers needs to be much higher than previously required.

Factoring Popularity Increasing?

Received some independent research yesterday from a factoring company. Apparently alternative finance options have increased in popularity, with 52% of accountants saying it is now an "attractive source of funding for their clients", with asset based funding increasing by 30% in the last quarter of 2007.

Unfortunately these figures exclude invoice assets. As no invoice figures were supplied with the research we presume this market-place is pretty flat in-line with our experience and what we are hearing from our factoring suppliers.