CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Category: <span>Investor News</span>

A hugely viable building scheme that failed to launch through a pooled lending platform has raised all the funding it needed in 15 minutes through CapitalStackers.

Converting Charles House – a five storey former HMRC office in Preston – into 70 apartments, all priced at an affordable £90K to £130K (with 27 covered car spaces) certainly has its attractions for investors.

Particularly when you factor in that it’s sited in Winckley Square – traditionally a prime office address for solicitors, accountants and banks, a mile and a half south of University of Central Lancashire and a few minutes’ walk from the mainline rail station and retail centre. The square enjoyed a recent £1m upgrade and Charles House is just the latest of several buildings around the square to be converted to residential use.

The scheme targets the many first time buyers, young professionals and investors flocking to Preston’s revitalised city centre, but is also close to the M6, M65 and M61 interchange and just 40 minutes from Manchester and Liverpool via rail or road. The city’s railway on the West Coast Mainline can whisk residents to London Euston in as little as two hours fifteen minutes.

However, the initial failure to launch highlights the importance of matching the right sort of funding to the investment opportunity.

Contracts had already been exchanged on the site purchase when the P2P lender pulled out – although clearly not because of any problem with the deal.

The broker, Real Property Finance offered the deal to United Trust Bank, who quickly put up £3,966,000 to cover all the construction costs and brought in CapitalStackers – with whom they had successfully collaborated on other deals – to raise the mezzanine finance.

CapitalStackers Director Sylvia Bowden said, “We found absolutely nothing wrong with the deal itself – it’s one of the best we’ve come across. It’s just that longer term building projects aren’t really suitable for the pooled lending model. You need to ensure all your construction capital is in place before anybody lifts a trowel, rather than assume you can attract new investors once building is under way. Otherwise you run the risk of it falling out of bed like this one did”.

Managing Director Steve Robson added, “When RPF approached us, we did our usual deep and granular risk assessment and despite the COVID-19 situation we were bullish about raising the £750,000 needed in time.”

“Once again, our investors didn’t let us down and we’d like to thank them for continuing to support projects. Their appetite for deals remains as sharp as it’s ever been, but it’s important to point out that this isn’t just due to luck. Our due diligence has delivered for them time after time, and they have once again proved they have a nose for a good deal.”

The particulars of the deal certainly shine through. Aside from the £4.7m raised, the developer has put in £1m of his own cash and once completed, the scheme will generate net sales of £7.2m.

CapitalStackers investors had the choice of three layers ranging between a Loan-to-Value ratio of 60% (paying annualised interest of 9.66%) and 69% (paying 15.80%).

The conversion will be carried out by Empire Property Concepts, who have an impressive track record in completing similar developments, the original 10-person lift is to be retained along with most of the windows. A contingency sum of 11% is included in the budget costs and no structural works are required.

Naturally, the risk assessors have cast an eye at the dark clouds of COVID-19 hanging above the industry and built in a pessimistic assumption that perhaps 40 of the apartments will be sold in the 9 months following completion, with the rest taking even longer.

However, should any units remained unsold, CapitalStackers’ modelling shows that the project could be refinanced with more than enough interest cover from rental income. Rent receipts, after an allowance for voids and management costs would cover interest on a refinance mortgage of the senior debt by 173% even if no apartments were sold. The equivalent ratio based on aggregate debt is 139%. Furthermore, these ratios should increase as sales proceeds reduce debt.

On the other hand, the borrower is confident of exchanging contracts on most of the units before the building is even finished – primarily through targeting Buy-To-Let investors. The market rent has been independently assessed at £550 pcm for the one-bed apartments and £650 pcm for the two-beds. This gives a total gross market rent of £546K.

This deal is becoming typical of the kind of attractive pickings to be found in the COVID-19 climate. As more deals fail to launch, the CapitalStackers model is capable of ploughing on, thanks to its unwavering policy of nailing down all construction finance before work commences. It’s even become a source of comfort to the banks, knowing that when mezzanine finance from other sources fails, they know where to come for a fast (and steadfast) solution.

Blog Borrower News Deals Investor News

CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

It seems that staring at the same four walls every day has forced many of us to contemplate the nature of housing. And human nature being what it is, we’re searching for someone to beat up and blame for the ills of society.

And I’m sorry, Landlords, but right now, it’s you.

Notwithstanding the fact that 20% of the UK population rely on you for a roof over their heads [1], you’re being fingered for “pushing up the cost of housing and creating an affordability crisis for almost everyone else”. [2]

That’s quite a charge. So the rise in house prices was nothing to do with a free market economy that allowed six million more households to buy their own homes since 1980, and the two million more who were helped to do so by housing associations? And the rise in people entering private rented accommodation had nothing to do with the decline of social housing?

Presumably, those 20% would have all bought their own homes if it weren’t for you exploiting them – despite the fact that 12.5% of households still chose to rent privately way back in 1980 – before any encouragement from Mrs Thatcher and all the social changes since. [3]

We’re not saying the decline in social housing is not a problem, of course – we’re just saying it’s not a problem that can fairly be blamed on landlords.

But seriously, if it’s not The Daily Telegraph wishing your demise in an article about COVID-19 precipitating a housing crash, it’s the article’s readers chucking all their furniture on the bonfire.

On 18th April, The Telegraph cranked up the air-raid siren, saying that the 28% of landlords who owned properties outright (and therefore would not qualify from Government-backed mortgage relief) “faced bankruptcy” if tenants were unable to pay rent and that “as many as 80% (of landlords) could be forced to quit the sector”. [4]

This prediction was met with glee by a significant proportion of those commenting on the article – a typical example being, “A massive clear out of the ‘get rich quick’ Buy to Let industry will be one of the many welcome and long overdue effects of the COVID crisis”.

Jeepers! Whose side are they on? Certainly not the side of those families who will have nowhere to live if landlords pull out (which they won’t of course – what kind of investor sells an asset in a sliding market?).

Neither is the Shadow Cabinet too bothered about those families, with Labour demanding a tightening of the coils around landlords in their manifesto [5] and Emily Thornberry screeching that empty houses should be confiscated from their owners [6].

Local activist communities like the London Renters Union and Acorn stirred the pot further by concocting a Renter Manifesto which demanded “Homes to live in, not for profit”, insisting that landlords should sell their properties to local authorities (as opposed to on the open market) and again pinning the blame squarely and unfairly on those who rent out properties rather than the Government which doesn’t build and society as a whole which feels an Englishman’s home is his asset.

The Guardian and The Independent, of course, have been banging this drum for quite a while. Last April, Mike Segalov responded to Government changes to BTL legislation by calling landlords “exploitative and inhumane charlatans” and pointing out that “someone earning minimum wage would find the average private rented home unaffordable [7]. Landlords can point to “the market” to justify charging high rents and feel they aren’t to blame”. Well, thanks for that, Mike – would you mind explaining to us how landlords specifically are to blame, if ordinary homeowners aren’t? Or don’t you want to go there (you didn’t, so I suppose that answers that question).

And back in July, one could imagine George Monbiot wringing  his tear-sodden hands as he typed a piece about tenants “paying landlords to live like kings”, mewling that “the UK has become a paradise for landlords” [8]. He rages that “in the 13 years between 2002 and 2015, average wages for people who rent rose by 2%, but their rents rose by 16%” without a sniff of context. The context, of course, is that housebuilding in this country has always lagged behind population growth, and the period he highlights saw a massive increase of 9.7% coupled with a rising trend of single occupancy due to social changes. This massive increase in demand pushed house prices up 95% over the period that George bewails rents going up 16%. [9]

Why he feels renters should be immune from the market forces that toss the rest of us around, he doesn’t say. In any case, renters in the UK have it better in the UK than they do across Europe and beyond. We have more tenants with subsidised rents per head than in any other country bar Slovenia. [10]

Also worthy of note is the fact that people living in Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland rent, rather than buy, and presumably by choice, judging by the above chart.

Quite why the heavyweights of “social justice” are queueing up to give Mrs Miggins a kicking it’s equally hard to fathom. Of course, painting landlords as the Robber Barons de nos jours is a populist way of stirring up class hatreds and hastening their comrades to the barricades.

However, it’s simply a spiteful campaign of emotional propaganda, by grown-ups who should know better. It wants us to believe that all renters are poor and all landlords are rich. And when we see the reality it starts to look a bit silly.

There are many reasons why people rent – high-level job relocations, postings, marriage breakups, not just through lack of choice – and let’s not forget that most private landlords are just ordinary folks who got stuck with their mum’s old end terrace, or moved in with a second spouse and kept the old place on “just in case”.

Even those who kept buying and built up a string of rental homes to keep them in their retirement are hardly grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt, for the most part. Yes, they’re using property to make profit – but profit is simply another word for “income”, and why is that somehow worse than using any other means to make an income? Why is it different to making money from selling cars, or apples, or the sweat of your brow? Why, for that matter, does someone investing to ensure their own self-sufficiency in retirement make them a legitimate piñata for the illiberal elite?

And why vilify people who are providing a much-needed service? Why try to hound them out of the business, when we know that if they weren’t doing it, the UK’s homelessness problem would become considerably worse, not better?

The simplistic argument of Monbiot, Acorn et al is that fewer buyers means lower prices, so if you took private landlords out of the equation, all homes would become more affordable. But this is naïve reading of economics. It completely ignores the fundamentals of the cost of housing.

Private housing is built to sell to people. The people who build it do so to earn their crust. So unless it’s heavily subsidised, private housing will only ever be built when it’s economically viable. And since the cost of materials and labour isn’t going down, the only moving part in this equation is the cost of land. And in tough times, that goes down. Not so long ago in some parts of the country, sites couldn’t be given away because the cost of building houses was more than they could be sold for. So nothing got built and who suffered most? The people at the bottom of the housing chain, that’s who.

Of course, the social justice nihilists don’t tell us this; either because it’s inconvenient to their argument, or because they don’t understand it.

Do these people hate the idea of landlords so much that they would rather make the poor homeless than see a few people make an income from homing them? Because, if those landlords were really serious about making money from property, they could do a damn sight better than Buy to Let, anyway.

As we pointed out years ago, [11] Buy to Let is a seriously tough way to turn a penny.

Investing your redundancy or pension drawdown (say £100K) into perhaps a modest flat costing £275K – with maybe a 3% mortgage, might yield you a 3.5% return once you take into account void costs, management fees and maintenance.

And, of course, that’s after shelling out £15,700 up front for stamp duty, legal fees and mortgage costs. Not to mention all the stress, costs and headaches of managing an asset with real, living people occupying it (and sometimes not). And if you got fed up of the wildly erratic income and tried to sell within 6 years, unless there’d been a hike in property values, you’d lose money on it.

That’s a heck of a lot of pain for a slippery 3.5%.

Particularly when you consider that you could invest that same £100,000 and make annualised returns of 10%+ out of property development in just a year or two (with some projects having paid as much as 20%). The bottom end of that range is significantly more than our landlord would make even if he held on for 20 years and enjoyed 3% compound annual growth in house prices.

Investors in CapitalStackers have been making these kinds of returns with none of the pain landlords go through – and with a lot less capital exposure, because the borrower is taking the first loss risk if the market falls. Rather than having to service a huge BTL mortgage, investors can participate in property developments with as little as £5,000.

In reality, these are the people making smart money out of property – not your poor old Buy-to-Let landlord. So please, let’s cut landlords some slack.

They don’t have it as easy as you think.

Blog Investor News

CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Who knows what kind of economic landscape we will witness when we finally emerge, blinking in the sunlight, from our Covid-19 lockdown?

Many things will have changed, for certain. Many jobs – many companies even – will have ceased to exist. But one thing that won’t have changed, as sure as death and taxes, is there will still be a housing shortage.

The social change that drives that shortage won’t have gone away, either. Family break-ups, people getting married later and living longer are constantly repainting the panorama. In the new zeitgeist, we need more housing units because we have more family units.

And the impediments to solving that problem haven’t gone away either. They boil down to two simple facts: (1) We’re not building enough; and, (2) We’re not moving enough.

Society is a heaving, growing, moving mass, and if people get stuck in the wrong home (or without a home), our social fabric is tied in knots.

What’s more, if we underestimated the possible effects of a pandemic, it will be as nothing compared to the effects of a housing shortage left unaddressed in the years to come.

So having put the housing market into an induced coma, what can the Government now do – indeed, what must it do – to lubricate this rusty housing chain, get more people into the right homes, and keep the housing market moving?

  1. Facilitate mortgage availability

One of the most short-sighted responses to the current crisis is mortgage lenders refusing new loans to anyone unless they already have 25-40% equity. One of the UK’s biggest lenders, Nationwide, announced on 24th March that it would only offer mortgage deals at 75% Loan-to-Value – effectively pulling out of the new mortgage market. Santander and Skipton trumped them by setting its limit at 60%. One by one, most of the other major lenders followed suit.

While this is widely reported to be a temporary measure, none of the providers seems to have noticed that they have collectively emptied both barrels into their own metatarsals.

If mortgages dry up, so does the chain of buyers. No buyers means housing values will fall, and the mortgage lenders’ portfolios will suffer a pointless hike in LTV ratios.

It’s also totally unnecessary and short-termist. They’re seeing risk in absolute terms, rather than human terms. Yes, it might make sense on paper not to lend at 95% LTV when you might anticipate a 10% drop in the market. But houses aren’t airline shares. People don’t, by and large, buy them to sell in the short term. They buy them to live in. The average tenure has rocketed from 8 to 21 years (35 in London) so nitpicking risk assessors are not only missing the point of mortgages, they’re also shutting off their own pipeline and – even worse – blocking the lower paid from getting onto the housing ladder.

So if the mortgage providers won’t help themselves (and history has shown that they largely won’t), the Government needs to extend its provisory largesse to this area of the economy and erect a nerve-settling safety net. The message they’re giving to banks about businesses – “Just let them borrow” – needs to pervade the entire economy, because if people didn’t realise before how utterly interlinked the economy is, they do now.

  1. Suspend Council Tax on empty buildings.

What better way to bring down an already staggering construction industry than to administer a baseball bat to the knees, in the form of taxing their product before they can even sell it?

What other industry has to overcome such a hurdle? Builders are actually being forced to pay for services that are not being used – bins not being emptied, public transport not being utilised, parks and recreations not being visited – because there is as yet no-one to use them. This is akin to charging road tax on cars that are still in the showroom, or inheritance tax for your granny who isn’t yet dead. It’s obscene, pointless and again, it crushes its own windpipe. Councils should be encouraging new homes to be built within their provinces, to increase their own long-term revenue.

Yes, we know that the original intention was to encourage the occupation of empty homes, but right now, we need more empty buildings in order to fill them, and this policy is not helping in the least.

It would be a strengthening shot in the arm if councils were to suspend this utterly unconstructive tax on new build homes – preferably forever, or at least until the industry is in better shape.

  1. Extend the current Help to Buy Scheme

This is one of the most liberating initiatives ever to have hit the market, so why limit a force for good? The news that the Government has confirmed the extension of the Help to Buy equity loan scheme till 2023 is to be welcomed – but why this should be restricted to first time buyers is a mystery.

Wider stimulation will warm the blood vessels right through the industry – helping existing homeowners to move will naturally free up homes for first time buyers. And since the current extension was put in place when Corona was nothing more than a beer, we now need to consider how long the existing scheme should be extended to help repair the damage of the virus.

  1. Suspend Stamp Duty

Boris Johnson has already hinted at scrapping it, and having hinted, he needs to get on and do it, because the rumours themselves will stall the market – after all, who wants to buy now if they can save a considerable wedge by waiting till spring?

We already know the stimulating effect of even small tax changes on the market, but they just need to be done in the right way – the wrong way being the way Nigel Lawson did it in 1988. The housing boom (and consequent bust) of the late ‘80s was an unintended result of Lawson’s bungled removal of double mortgage relief for married couples. By telegraphing in March his intention to scrap it in July, he inadvertently caused a three-month stampede, which overheated the market and helped induce its collapse.

Nevertheless, just because one chancellor applied the wrong medicine at the wrong time, that doesn’t disprove the benefit of a little tonic in a place that sorely needs it. Stamp duty has left the handbrake on the housing market, and the further we try to drive, the more it squeals.

Lifting it, even for a little while, would bring blessed relief. Millions of older people are trapped in houses that are too big for them (and would be ideal for younger families). Many of them could afford to move when they find the perfect little bungalow, but if they need to bridge the sale of their house while they wait for a buyer, they’re subject to a 3% SDLT premium. Granted, they can claim it back if they sell within three years, but it’s a big chunk of cash to be waiting for, and so it’s a deterrent to the Silver Sellers. Not to mention a huge admin cost to the Government for money which, ultimately, they have to hand back.

Remove it, and the entire chain moves on a notch.

  1. Let builders build and equip them to do it

The clamour to close building sites must end with a firm word from the top. Builders need to keep building, full stop. The alternative is to extend the housing crisis until it becomes a catastrophe.

Granted, conditions on some building sites must be addressed – particularly in London, with crews working in cramped conditions, and in some cases living at close quarters, too. But to shut down an entire industry because of poor observance in one city would be madness.

Writing national policy with London blinkers on is never a great idea. The majority of sites outside the capital are run within Government safety guidelines, and are regularly inspected to ensure they continue to do so. The nation needs them to keep building, so the Government needs to let them get on with it.

And this also means “stop giving mixed messages”. Set the guidelines and make them clear and comprehensive.

Those building sites which have stayed open are finding most builders merchants that supply them are closed. True, the Government told builders merchants to get back to work last week (while observing public health guidelines), but that was amid a cacophony of messages telling everyone to stay home unless their job was absolutely necessary. Such discordant advice naturally led the bigger chains – the Selcos, TPs, Howdens et al – to close their doors rather than risk an HR backlash.

Even in those outlets that are open, confusion reigns. Anecdotal reports paint a patchy picture of how the directives are being interpreted, with builders being sold plasterboard, but not skirting board, as it is “not an essential item”.

If we trust builders to build, we must also trust them to judge what they need to do their job, and not tie their hands unnecessarily.

Let’s not forget, also, the interconnectedness and interdependence of the economy. A moving housing market drags the replacement kitchen and bathroom market along with it. It mobilises an army of manufacturers and suppliers, fitters and finishers, painters and decorators, landscape gardeners, soft and hard furnishers…

Keeping these industries moving preserves them and ensures the housing market is ready to go as soon as restrictions are lifted – and in an industry that moves slowly, this is surely vital. The rest of the economy can’t afford for the building industry to slow to a stop. Too much else depends on it.

So will any of this happen? We hope so. This Government has distinguished itself so far by a remarkable willingness to listen. Solutions have been proffered and adopted almost as soon as the problems have been identified. And we imagine they will continue to do so. The first four measures above would have been a welcome response to the housing crisis even in normal times. But now we’ve had a crisis upon a crisis, they have become imperatives.

Blog COVID-19 Investor News

CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Are the hands of your watch moving as slowly as mine? And pure irony, isn’t it – as soon as Boris tells us to stay at home, it stops raining and out comes the sun?!

The vast majority of us are adjusting to home working and getting on with ‘social distancing’. Those businesses that are allowed to work as ‘normal’ are getting on with that too. Except the construction industry has come under intense fire for keeping building sites open. At the beginning of the week, the media’s attention was focused primarily – if not wholly – on London. Candid shots of a crowded Tube and big, tight construction sites in the Capital’s centre featured high on news editors’ agendas alongside calls from the London Mayor and Scotland’s First Minister to halt construction altogether.

Thankfully, the Government has held its nerve, for now at least, and hundreds, if not thousands, of SME housebuilders are continuing to do their level best to keep the home fires burning. And with safety at the top of the agenda. We’re going to come through this some time in the not too distant future and in the meantime it’s imperative that we fight hard to keep as much of the economy going as is humanly possible. The point is made very persuasively here by Jamie Blackett of the Telegraph. Those keyboard warriors who have been sniping at small builders would be better off directing their ire at the hordes of ‘long distancing’ walkers descending en masse to the same locations and the parents who allow their kids to roam unchecked. They are the ones posing a real danger to everyone else’s efforts to #flattenthecurve.

Some of the national housebuilders have stopped building but there’s a suspicion the shutdown is more to do with the ability to sell finished product during a lockdown than the working practices on site. The Construction Leadership Council is all over the latter like a rash. It, and other professional bodies, have circulated comprehensive site operating procedures. Certainly, all the contractors on sites we are funding are on the ball. Site meetings are virtual, hosted on Skype or Teams or Zoom with monitoring surveyors conducting site visits outside normal construction hours. It’s sensible, measured, meets Government guidelines and is safe. There is certainly no more risk than doing the supermarket shop.

This Insider article about a regional housebuilder serves as a fine counterpoint to the stance being adopted by some of the nationals as reported in Property Week. By the way, access to Property Week online is now free until 19th April in case you want to read more.

Disappointingly, some of our borrowers are reporting difficulties with the supply chain. Builders’ merchants and timber factories going into lockdown isn’t helping and will only serve to push out build programmes. We’ve reviewed and remodelled all our deals to take this into account.

I’m going to finish this blog with a link to someone else’s on the basis it’s good to finish with something more upbeat. Earlier this month, Savills revisited the housing market forecasts they penned in November last year, concluding that market fundamentals continue to underpin their medium term view. They subsequently published further coronavirus opinion after the lockdown in which they expect short term price falls in the order 5% – 10%. You can read more here.

Oh, and anecdotally, it’s interesting to note that since this kicked off, we’ve had just one investor looking to sell a loan participation in our Secondary Market (that’s a rare event given most choose to stay in for the whole ride). It was posted late yesterday and went under offer this morning. Make of that what you will, but I think it’s a strong sign of underlying confidence.

Stay safe.

COVID-19 Investor News

CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Total transparency has always been a core function to us at CapitalStackers, but in the current climate, just like handwashing, this element of normal housekeeping takes on critical importance.

We’re fully aware that our investors will be looking to us to keep them informed as the COVID-19 crisis unfolds. Of course, detailed information has always been available in the individual deal rooms on the platform. But for those investors who may not go looking for this, there’s a chance they could miss important information.

So to be clear, we’ll be reporting even more regularly to you – both in general terms, and on a deal-by-deal basis. We’ll give you all possible detail on how conditions on the ground are affecting the specific projects that you’ve invested in.

Clearly, we can’t predict how things will pan out, but by continuing to give you regular, exhaustive progress reports on each project – both from the borrower, and from the independent surveyor – we hope to give you all the information you need to assess the ongoing safety of your investments.

If you’re investing through a pooled platform – across a variety of consumer and SME loans – your capital is more likely be affected in the immediate to short-term. If you’re able to, you might want to withdraw your funds quickly because the situation is volatile and information hard to come by, but this may no longer be possible.

On the other hand, when you lend direct on a property development scheme through CapitalStackers, the situation is going to be played out over a longer term (excepting projects where completion is imminent), so the need to move quickly is not quite so crucial.

Of course, you’ll want to keep a closer eye on the situation – but you’ll also have an ongoing, detailed rundown of every key element of the investment. As we say, this is available on the platform at all times, but over the coming months we’ll go further and interpret it more frequently so that you don’t miss a thing.

And while the current situation could never have been foreseen, our standard due diligence builds in some fairly significant downsides for every scheme because we have always felt it prudent to do so. This, therefore, leaves you a fair amount of headroom before the virus infects your capital.

For instance, if we’re (collectively) lending within our typical range up to a maximum 75% Loan-to-Value including interest, this means the sale price will have to fall by more than 25% from the appraised valuation before your capital is affected. However – this is also after we’ve allowed for potential construction delays, cost overruns and deferred sales.

That’s quite a lot of breathing time.

Then again, we’re not rejecting the possibility that property values could be hit hard in the coming months, but as you’d expect, we’ve considered this in our risk analysis too.

And without doubt, the most important thing you want to know right now is how all this could impact our deals, and your investments. We’re going to try to answer this question here, but please be aware that the answer will extend and adapt as the situation does.

 

What could the effects be?

This is new territory for everyone. The whole world has changed and seemingly changes again every time the sun comes up. Accurate prediction is nigh on impossible but here are our best conjectures about the immediate impact:

Project periods may need to be extended because:

  • Skilled labour supply might be reduced;
  • The supply chain could be interrupted;
  • Utility companies may decrease output or even go into self-imposed lockdown;
  • A blanket lock down on all sites could be imposed by the Government if on-site working practices on some sites fail to adhere to safe distancing rules.
  • Projects nearing completion will certainly be impacted by the current general lockdown. If people can’t view, they won’t be able to buy and so selling periods will become protracted.

We can expect longer construction periods to lead to increased costs and higher interest accrued through longer-than-anticipated loan terms.

In addition to the above, property values may fall due to a weaker economy.

These factors will eat into the profit margin and push up the Loan-to-Value ratio.

 

So what are we doing about it?

In short, we’re going through our daily downside sensitivity routine, but on steroids. We’re appraising each deal in the context of where it is now, assessing the possibility of a total construction lockdown, evaluating delays to construction and sales with interest continuing to roll up.

Through this exercise, we’re able to give you a progressive insight into how much values could fall before you are on risk.

Although the situation is unprecedented, we’re also able to draw from historical examples in our modelling, and this gives us some cause for optimism.

The last massive interruption to the market came in 2008 when the banking sector imploded and liquidity almost completely dried up. As you can see from the chart below, the market fell less than 20% in the eighteen months from the peak in September 2007 to the trough of March 2009. This, of course, is less than the minimum 25% headroom all CapitalStackers deals allow for.

Financial hygiene is even more important during the COVID-19 crisis

The banking sector at that time was less robust than it is now. Some banks collapsed, others simply pulled out – leaving the property sector in the lurch. It took a long time for the market to get back to where it was.

Today, banks have better capital ratios and their real estate exposure is significantly more conservative. The expectation and likelihood is that they will remain supportive while the market repairs itself, and that the repair should be quicker and more stable than last time.

So to summarise, as always, we’re maintaining close contact with our borrowers, senior debt providers, monitoring surveyors and estate agents – but everyone is on high alert and we’re fully aware of the increased importance of full and detailed information.

And as ever, we’re making ourselves fully available to investors. You’re used to that, of course, but now, more than ever, if you want to discuss the outlook either generally or specific to any deal, you’re welcome to call us at any time. Our contact numbers are below.

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CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Is it any more than a coincidence that big players are pulling out of the retail P2P market at the very moment the new, tighter FCA regulations come into force? 

Both ThinCats and Landbay have publicly switched to institutional funding, citing the main reason as the dwindling cost-effectiveness of servicing individual investors. Both suggested that the retail sector was no longer commercially viable”. 

However, since others clearly continue to find it viable, the timing suggests other factors at play. The FCA’s tightening up of the rules  including appropriateness tests and investment limits imposed on Restricted investors was intended to remove the bad actors from the industry, to clean out the stables and bring the crowdfunders into the mainstream. And of course it will do that. 

However, as a couple of fairly significant babies are sluiced away with the bathwater, we’re left to wonder whether more of the good operators will be putting up the shutters and thinking it’s too much like hard work to try and boost the portfolio of Mrs Miggins.   

This would be an awful shame.  

At CapitalStackers, we’ve always welcomed tighter regulations. Since our own working practices have always been well above the regulatory minimum, we’re happy to have the playing field levelled to the highest degree possible.  

Let’s make no mistake about it – this is a great moment in our industry’s history. A defining moment. Where common sense finally anchored the helium-filled headlines. 

It’s not as if the new rules are particularly onerous. They boil down to “don’t sell things to people who don’t understand them”. Which is a pretty basic principle for organisations trusted with Mrs. Miggins’ life savings. 

As a responsible platform, we don’t want to be inviting investments from people who don’t fully understand the mechanics of risk and reward. Our business model is not, and has never been, dependent on catching the unsuspecting unawares.  

We actively seek people who understand that reward is an inter-related function of risk. As with the stock market, it generally follows that the higher the risk you take, the more chance there is of losing some or all of your money – but the higher the reward. However, athe fly half targets the flailing prop in midfield, sometimes a mismatch can lead to success. In some instances, a surprisingly low LTV ratio can bring a double-digit reward.  

The key is information. Monitoring and reporting. The P2P “outlaws” that have gone by the wayside have largely been characterised by a lack of both. Anyone investing in a CapitalStackers scheme, on the other hand, will have access to an Aladdin’s cave of information on the deal, the developer, and all the peripheral contributing factors that explain the terms of the deal. Not just before they invest, but throughout the life of the deal. 

Of course, it’s a shame that regulations had to be imposed from above to force the cowboys to stop shooting up the town. But it’s equally sad that a couple of decent operators have now felt all this is now beneath them, and that the game is not worth the candle. 

Landbay cited their need to “compete” with the banks. Founder John Goodall lamented that other P2P platforms were lending at higher rates while Landbay was looking to compete with banks whose mortgage rates are lower. 

“Our margins were being increasingly squeezed and we would have had to cut investor rates to compete,” he said. 

This is something that has never exercised us at CapitalStackers. The market is plenty big enough for the banks and P2P platforms not to tread on each others’ toes. We happily work in close partnership with banks on the same deals, sharing information and underpinning each others’ due diligence. Operating at different levels to push the same deal over the line, and our respective rates are set accordingly 

Most deals need the banks, and they need us, too. Some banks have even started to bring deals to CapitalStackers for us to help them make it happen. They’re comfortable that tightly-run P2P is a great enabler – and the small investor derives comfort from the fact that the bank is involved, because they know bankers understand risk and reward more than most. 

So it will be a great sadness if the regulations designed to remove the bad choices for investors also thinned out the good ones. There’s room for all of us, and educating our investors is not so big a burden, is it? 

We sincerely hope more operators who know what they’re doing enter the market as the regulations become the norm. 

But in the meantime, if any jilted investors are looking for a place to grow their stack of capital, you know where to come. 

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CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

What is it about CapitalStackers deals that sees them sold out so quickly to those in the know? 

 Anyone who’s ever tried to invest in a CapitalStackers deal knows you have to be quick on the draw to get a piece. They’re known for selling out fast – sometimes in minutes, and rarely more than a few days. 

 So in a market where even astute investors have been so publicly burnt (viz: Lendy and FundingSecure lenders), what is it that gives people such a voracious appetite for this particular property-based crowdfunder? 

 Certainly, interest has stepped up since they were dubbed the Safest 20% Returns in P2P Lending (https://www.4thway.co.uk/candid-opinion/the-safest-20-returns-in-p2p-lending/ ), but to be fair, deals were oversubscribed well before that.  

Of course, the mere scarcity of deals may sharpen the appetite of some. Since deals have to be very watertight indeed to withstand the buffeting from the CapitalStackers Due Diligence Team. Very few make it through – perhaps understandably since the CapitalStackers directors invest in every single scheme themselves – to the tune of £1.7 million at present (and almost £4 million in total to date). 

But then, seasoned investors are not swayed by mere rarity value. They tend to get down to the nuts and bolts.  

They’ll notice, for instance, the fact that CapitalStackers hasn’t set itself up to operate, as others havepurely as an alternative to the banks.  

And for very good reasons. 

Owned and managed by former bank property lending specialists, CapitalStackers is actually the only P2P facilitator that works in close partnership with banks, on the very same deals, sharing information, each doing their own independent due diligence and – crucially – allowing the bank to bear the ongoing liquidity risk in full In this way, it ensures all construction funding is in place before a sod is cut and any investor parts with a penny.  

This is deeply reassuring for investors, since they know that the success of each venture is fully self-contained and never has to rely on attracting funds from new investors to finish the project. It’s equally reassuring for them to know that banks are unlikely to wade into any deal this deep without serious confidence that it’s going to bear golden fruit. 

Anyone looking at the deal history will have been further reassured by the sheer volume and frequency of information. From the basics – conservative Loan to Value ratios; often lower than 50%, never above 75% – to what some might call pedantic; historic flood risks in the general area of the construction site (which actually proved its worth in a project in York a few years ago, which escaped the floods that deluged the city and returned an impressive 22.4% per annum to investors). In between, a huge volume of information is provided on the site’s dashboard for each deal, from the business history of the developers, surveyor’s reports, micro and macro risk analyses, builders’ inside leg measurements… 

And unlike some notable P2P platforms, whose interest rates are seemingly set as “headline” rates to attract investors, CapitalStackers’ return rates are calculated specifically through detailed analysis of all the above factors. This is the key to investors’ confidence. They know that the risk they sign up for is fairly and accurately priced into the return they will get for it. 

This meticulous scrutiny has produced an enviable record of returns to investors of between 8.5% and 22.5% with no losses (although as a prudent platform we would always point out to investors that one can never say never. However, since they personally have a lot of skin in every deal, it makes sense that the directors of CapitalStackers operate at an extremely high level of diligence and reporting).  

Hence, many investors, on being repaid, immediately reinvest in the next CapitalStackers scheme. Having begun investing with the confidence that they’re lending alongside the CapitalStackers directors who are lending alongside the banks, their confidence has been nurtured by a wholly positive, fully-informed lending experience and a fruitful result.  

And it’s why, if you do hear of a CapitalStackers deal coming up that you’d love to get a piece of, these are the quick-fingered competitors you’ll have to beat to get your bid in. 

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CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Before the rotten practices of FundingSecure (and prior to that, Lendy) stink out the entire P2P barrel, allow us to offer a free professional opinion: we could have told you so. 

The FCA’s new, tighter regulations (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/peer-to-peer-lenders-given-last-warning-32tc32h2rwill certainly help clean out some of the bad crowdfund operators, but will clearly come too late for some investors.  

Of course, well-run P2P industry is a crucial cog in the post-modern economic machine. It gives good businesses access to funds that banks can no longer supply, and it gives investors access to opportunities that have erstwhile been closed to them.  

Stuart Law, the Chief Executive of Assetz Capital, made this point in the Financial Times recentlywelcoming the fact that “it is a fact of life now that these businesses have much tighter prudential standards and regulations to live up to.”  

We agree, of course. However, when he goes on to speculate that “smaller platforms” may struggle with consolidation in the sector, we take issue with him. 

“P2P lending is…now a highly regulated market”, he says, “which is good for investors with larger, well-funded platforms such as ourselves but makes things very difficult for under-resourced businesses,’ adding that “The smaller players are clearly struggling to keep up and the badly-run businesses are being scrutinised by the regulator.” 

This is clearly an over-generalisation – and the uncharitable amongst us might suggest it is made with mischievous intent. The phrase equating “larger” platforms with well-funded” ones is a non-sequitur. As is the suggestion that smaller ones are “badly-run”Anyone who knows their investment onions will be aware that size is no guarantee of good operation, or of sufficiency of funding. In fact, a major part of FundingSecure’s problem was its appetite for growth even in areas outside its experience. 

A report in The Daily Telegraph as recently as June 2019 pointed to spiralling defaults and repeated extension of loan terms. The platform, having been forced to sell a majority stake and address investors’ concerns by “reassessing” the entire loan book and promising “timely and meaningful updates” on loans, clearly saw no reason to ease off on growth and wait until its house was back in order, but issued a further 36 loans in May alone, adding £2.2 million to the mounting bonfire, and attracted 134 new investors. 

These investors joined despite the fact that anyone with a couple of idle fingers could have Googled reports like that on profitwarning.co.uk back in December 2018, which flagged, among other things: 

Increased defaults: Many property-facing platforms have suffered problems, particularly those whose loans rely on further development. The site seems to have shifted over the years to become more property focused, which explains this.
Poor Management: The nature of some of the defaults give rise to the doubts of the quality of monitoring given to loans by FundingSecure – perhaps they might be stretched too thinly staff-wise.
Poor Communication: There are no fixed times for updates to be given to investors. Often updates are not given at all, or when promised, missed out altogether. 

Or numerous Trustpilot reviews, such as this one from May 2018: 

Their recklessness with lenders’ money is criminal. Their valuations defy credulity and the resulting defaults end in catastrophic losses for investors with the company denying all responsibility for their dangerous lack of due diligence.  

And this one from November 2018: 

After lending now for over 9 months it is very clear that they are misleading investors…out of 40 investments that are due to be paid back with interest, 85% have not been??!! Updates are very poor and they are not making any attempts to…get back money for investors….They are taking on way too many loans and making their turn out of it to care about the lenders…avoid! 

This growth-at-all-costs attitude betrays a contempt for the fundamental obligations of handling other people’s money. FundingSecure moved away from what they knew – funding not-always-secure pawnbroking loans (in one notorious case loaning money secured on valuable paintings, and not realising the paintings had been sold partway through the loan term) – to (some equally dicey) bridging loans (which we’ve discussed before, in reference to Lendy). 

It’s not hard to see why it stopped giving full disclosure to its investors some time around April last year according to the investor complaints on Trustpilot 

It should be an irrefutable requirement of holding another individuals investments that before investors part with a single penny, you:  

  1. Rigorously scrutinise every fine detail of the deal;  
  2. Undertake a forensic examination of the borrower’s background (which FundingSecure publicly did not);
  3. Take clear, detailed soundings of the wider market; and,
  4. You continue to do all the above regularly, thoroughly and consistently throughout the whole of the loan term. 

And it is no less crucial that you give frequent, comprehensive and transparent information to the people whose money you’re holding. At CapitalStackers, these are fundamental principles – we have no interest in growth for growth’s sake. 

CapitalStackers is not a big organisation. Growth, we know, will come naturally if we maintain our diligence, choose our deals wisely and safeguard the trust of our investors. This is how we came to be named “the safest 20% returns in Peer-to-Peer lending” (https://www.4thway.co.uk/candid-opinion/the-safest-20-returns-in-p2p-lending). 

We’re not suggesting we’ve eliminated risk, but we do all we can to ensure that we, the platform, don’t become part of it. Of course there is risk involved in property lending  that’s what the interest calculations are based on (or should be) – but we take a huge amount of care to ensure our investors have all the information they need to clearly understand those risks and get good value for them. 

We also ensure investors’ understanding is predicated on full and clear disclosure of the facts – that is, the risk is priced into every deal. Over the years, our 120+ active investors have come to trust our risk assessment, which has produced not a single loss in £55 million raised since we first opened the doors. 

Now, that’s not to suggest we haven’t unearthed problems from time to time – but with our directors’ extensive banking backgrounds in specialist property lending teams, we have in place established procedures for tackling those problems promptly and efficiently, while all the time keeping our investors informed of how or whether the risk is changing. We’re experienced debt advisors – our lending skills having been fine-honed in our former lives. We know when to turn the screw, and how to help borrowers out of whatever hole they might find themselves in, and turn it into the foundations of something better.  

What’s more, our investors are not cast alone on the choppy waters of risk – the unique positioning of CapitalStackers is that we work in close partnership with banks on most projects. Allowing the banks to absorb the ongoing liquidity risk and ensuring all the funding is in place to complete the project before any CapitalStackers investor parts with a penny. This means we’ll never be dependent on bringing new investors down the line (a big no-no in our book), because every project is fully-funded from the start 

Consider the alternative. If a platform takes money from investors to start (and continue to build) a project on the expectation that further funding can be attracted from new investors as it progresses, then it’s taking a huge gamble with the initial investors’ money. There’s no guarantee that new investors will be found, and there is no lender of last resort. So if something goes wrong, it will be virtually impossible to finish the build, or to sell a part-built property. And imagine how easy – irrespective of the size of the platform – it would be for investors to get spooked by some unforeseen event, throwing the entire loan book into jeopardy. 

This is why we don’t take our investors into any deal unless we can see a clear, profitable exit. 

Furthermore, the point about partnering with banks is a fundamental point of reassurance to our investors. Not because we rely on their due diligence. We don’t. If anything, our own due diligence is stricter, not least because our own money is often involved. But because we analyse the deal together, price the risk together, raise money together and monitor the investment together – but then we take up different investing positions, complementing each other.  

And perhaps on a basic level, it’s reassuring for our investors to consider that banks only get involved in deals that they feel will return their investment. 

In fact, not only are we growing a steady reputation for funding deals that the banks like the look of – some banks have even started bringing deals to us to help get them off the ground.  

This sort of belt-and-braces risk management goes far beyond the proposed new regulations. But we don’t do it for compliance, we do it to protect our investors.  

So we don’t fully accept Stuart Law’s assertion that P2P is “now a highly regulated market which is good for investors – it’s not. It igetting there, but there’s still a long way to go.  

However, we do believe that the more astute investors are starting to be able to tell the good nuggets from the fool’s gold.  

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CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

Last week, the FCA sent a necessary and not-before-time letter to 65 peer-to-peer platforms whose operations they felt were not up to scratch. We welcome it being sent but suspect the same can’t be said for the recipients.

Now, we haven’t seen the letter at CapitalStackers because we’re not one of the 65. But we do have a vested interest in the FCA raising the bar to a level that excludes all but the most scrupulous. Not because it removes competition – the more the merrier – but because every bad actor in the market reflects badly on the rest of us.

We can’t stress too strongly that the charlatans, the incompetents and those who take risks beyond their expertise need to clean up their acts or clear out altogether. When you’re dealing with other people’s money there is no room for half measures.

So we welcome wholeheartedly the points noted in The Times (who have seen a copy) that the FCA have asked those firms to address in their 7-page missive.

Their criticisms include weaknesses in disclosure of information to clients, opaque charging structures and inadequate record keeping.

Let’s just take a moment here to shake our heads. These are fundamentals. Up there with restaurants not keeping pet rats and remembering to wash up every now and then. A financial institution should not need to be reminded that a flow of regular, detailed and accurate information from the borrower to the lender is an obligatory part of the deal. Verified by an independent party where appropriate. Those whose money is on the line need to be kept fully informed of the risks they’re taking. As former bankers and (current) accountants, the directors of CapitalStackers are lettered all through with this, and to us, it beggars belief that any financial platform can carry on without such prerequisites.

The FCA has also identified companies who advertise “headline-grabbing returns” that might lead consumers to take on “considerably greater risk than they appreciate”. There are two parts to this. One – return is an inextricable function of risk. They go together like the moon and the tides. A promise of big interest on its own should rightly ring alarm bells. An interest rate with an appropriate risk level is an invitation to do business. It’s what sophisticated investors look for – “How much will I make? Is that worth it for the risk?” – and that’s how they decide whether they’re in or out. The second part is, “Why are some operators selling risk to people who don’t understand it?” The new guidelines requiring all potential retail investors to complete a questionnaire assessing their knowledge of investment risks will certainly help – but only if adequate information is provided to them in the first place. Again, this is in our DNA at CapitalStackers. Investors visiting our deal pages will see detailed information on borrowers: their history, their plans, the up-hill-and-down-dale due diligence that takes into account everything from cost overruns to flooding forecasts to valuation sensitivity.

Which is another point brought up by the FCA. It highlighted an endemic problem in the industry with poor due diligence – not going deep enough into the background of borrowers; not monitoring the progress of developments closely enough, not being straight about default rates and recovery actions. Once more, we shake our heads. That anyone can run a financial platform without attention to these basics is beyond us. Default rates should be made clear. Of course, some would say that CapitalStackers is lucky to have incurred zero losses in our five years of business – but to paraphrase Sam Goldwyn, the harder we work, the luckier we get. Since nearly £2 million of our own money is invested in CapitalStackers schemes (and since we protect investors’ money as jealously as we do our own), we don’t mess around when it comes to due diligence before a deal is drawn down and then throughout its lifetime up to and including repayment. Even though we work in partnership with big banks on most projects, we don’t rest on their laurels. We accept their due diligence, of course, but we will have already looked into every nook and cranny of the deal, under every carpet and behind every curtain, before we’re satisfied enough to ask any investor for a penny.

As for the FCA’s point about some platforms displaying “Inadequate financial collateral and weaknesses in the handling of client money”, once again, with banking being in our blood, this is what we’d regard as a principal principle. Client money should be held in an independently adjudicated escrow account, the same way a solicitor handles funds paid into court. End of.

So yes, of course we welcome the FCA’s proposals. But it should never have come to this. Those who have played fast and loose with investors’ savings and the reputations of us all will get their come-uppance. And then the P2P industry can get on with its powerful and valuable purpose – supplementing the post-2008 banking industry to provide intelligent finance options to well-run businesses, and offering rewarding opportunities to well-informed investors.

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CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.

It’s still possible to earn double-digit returns from P2P without excessive risk. Look beyond the trends and big data and you can uncover some lucrative gems.  

The recent AltFi “State of the Market” report July 2019 had some sobering words for investors – particularly from BondMason’s CEO Stephen Findlay and the restructuring expert, Damian Webb. 

The report largely based its melancholy conclusions on the slackening growth in the Big Four – Zopa, Funding Circle, RateSetter and MarketInvoice – which gives you a summation that, while statistically correct, is incomplete and unhelpful to the investor. A bit like telling us all cars are unreliable because you once owned an Austin Allegro. 

Yes, the Big Four comprise the lion’s share of the market, but they also cover a limited field of vision – that is, they chiefly deal in unsecured loansor those not secured on easily identified concrete assets (with the exception of RateSetter’s property book) 

BondMason announced recently that it was pulling out of P2P due to these diminishing returns, but in this report Mr Findlay is keen not to appear a total Cassandra. 

Surveying the £6 billion world of peer lending from his vantage point atop a £54m loan book, he contended that net returns in the 3% – 6% range are achievable today at acceptable levels of risk and that the market is settling into a low-to-medium risk spectrum.  

“I still think there are some good opportunities to earn attractive risk-adjusted returns,” he shrugs, “but probably at the more conservative end of the market”. 

 

High returns aren’t the only yardstick. 

Had Mr Findlay looked a little further, he might have found reasons to be a little more bullish There are still opportunities for canny investors to make double digit returns without going on a white knuckle ride of high risk. Just because a return is high doesn’t mean you’re at the crazy end of the market. On the other hand, it’s equally possible to earn under 6 per cent and have the investment catching fire in your hands. High returns aren’t the only yardstick, although the way some commentators paint it, you’d think they were. 

It’s possible, for instance, to find platforms like CapitalStackers where you can lend to developers sitting on a reassuring chunk of equity and with Loan-to-Value ratios as low as 55% – and yet still make double digit returns in the time it takes to convert an old warehouse into upmarket flats.  

It’s also possible, to find platforms that are totally transparent and view regular and granular reporting as the duty of care it is, rather than an onerous and grudging requirement. 

The report overlooks opportunities like these and the nervous investor, led by pronouncements that lump together such diverse  “property lending” products as bridging loans, buy-to-let mortgages and development finance, might think that all real estate P2P is going to hell in a handcart. 

Particularly those that read the section written by Damian Webb. Viewing Mr Webb’s comments through the lens that he is an insolvency practitioner, may offer a little perspective. Were it possible to rub one’s hands and type at the same time, one can imagine Mr Webb doing just that here. 

“The sector is becoming more and more fraught with uncertainty,” he laments. ““Many of the alternative finance lenders have focused on markets that are underserved by traditional lenders or in spaces where traditional lenders do not operate. Banks and traditional lenders retreated from these areas due to the issues and losses they experienced during and after the financial crisis and consequently regard them as high risk.” 

Nowhere does he suggest that it’s possible to invest in platforms like CapitalStackers that work in tandem with the banks to mitigate the liquidity risk, partnering on deals the banks have every confidence in, and also to benefit from due diligence that is tighter and more thorough than many banks aspire to.

He laments that the elements of the business lending market he’s come across professionally are often characterised by limited data, which makes underwriting inherently difficult or challenging. 

He bases these insights on “his own experience of dealing with impaired business loan books” (although not specifying markets, connections or backgrounds), which is a bit like an undertaker giving us his opinion on who’s going to win the World Cup. 

He goes on to adumbrate about property lending in particular, whose yields “have fallen dangerously low during Britain’s long property boom”. 

“In Birmingham, for example,” he says, “five years ago it was possible to achieve residential yields of 7 per cent to 8 per cent. You would be lucky now to get between 4 per cent and 5 per cent. People are investing in development projects on the basis of these low yields.” 

Of course, the hearty chuckles of investors who’ve been comfortably pocketing 12, 18 and 20 per cent in CapitalStackers deals in recent months will be drowned out by Mr Webb’s ululations.  

Likewise, his complaints that P2P platforms don’t own their assets and loans can’t be sold to retrieve capital will be met with puzzled looks by CapitalStackers investors who trade their loans openly in the platform’s secondary marketplace. 

Yes it’s easy to look at big data and find patterns that frighten you. But big data leads to bad maths. And bad maths leads to poor investment.  

So rather than wring their hands about the bad operators in this market (and some of them were – and almost certainly are – very bad), the astute investor can find opportunities by looking through the leaden headlines to find the gold in the cracks between.  

Of course, there are risks in any investment market, and in property development the biggest risk – not necessarily the most likely, but the biggest – is the possibility of property values crashing more than 25%, burning through the comfort blanket and leaving lenders facing a loss. And of course, this kind of financial apocalypse is entirely possible – but then, all risk should be priced in by prudent platforms, and it makes sense to check this before investing. 

However, in property-based crowdfunding, fortune can still very much favour the lateral thinkerSo don’t be put off by the headline rates; don’t automatically assume that high returns mean high risk; and above all, don’t swallow whole what the “experts” tell you. 

Even when the whole world feels like it’s going to hell in a handcart, someone, somewhere is making money out of it. 

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CapitalStackers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 722549). Registered in England (Co. No. 7361691). Investment through CapitalStackers involves lending to property developers and investors. Your capital is at risk. Investments through this and other crowdfunding platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Unless otherwise stated, returns quoted are annualised and gross of tax.