Roma Finance, the Manchester based bridging finance and development lender, has reported its most successful half year, to 30th June 2017.  Four of the six months were consecutive record months in terms of value and volume of loans written, with lending more than double compared to H1 2016.

In H1 this year they issued nearly 1,000 Agreement in Principles valued at over £200m with conversions to funded transactions at their highest ever levels following the introduction of its new Fast Track process.

The success of Roma has come during a time of change for the buy to let market but Roma has extended its product offering to acquire more business from a broader range of introducers and customers. Large gains have been seen in commercial to residential conversions with borrowers being more creative finding alternative uses for pubs and care homes.

Roma’s growth comes despite the sector becoming more competitive with a host of new entrants which is perhaps due to Roma’s reputation for expertise and experience in property finance, meaning they can look at more cases and profile of customer than new entrants and P2P lenders.

Funding lines continue to be strong, with multiple institutional sources and private funding that still caters for specialist criteria and a wide variety of property types.

Scott Marshall, Managing Director at Roma, commented: “I’m delighted with the performance of the company so far in 2017. We have worked hard on our new Fast Track process which has seen us improve the time to pay out and build upon our excellent service levels, highlighted by our award for Service Excellence at the Bridging & Commercial Awards in June. Our underwriting team has been strengthened to cater for the increased demand and we remain pragmatic and timely with our lending decisions, which is well received by our loyal introducer base.

“Despite a number of new lenders coming into the short term lending space, our knowledge of the complexities of bridging cases and our ability to be pragmatic when challenged means we still remain a solid choice for those looking to acquire investment properties quickly, renovate them or change their use. We are also finding the number of introducers we’re working with on multiple projects increasing which is very satisfying in such a competitive market.”