9Y Capital has provided a £520,697 development finance facility to convert a redundant barn near Tring, Hertfordshire, into a two-bedroom home. Broker First Financial Intermediaries introduced the case.
The borrower moved into property development after retiring from elite motorsport, building experience one project at a time across nine new-build schemes and a series of high-end refurbishments. The neighbouring barn is already converted, and the same builder is carrying out the new scheme, a home of around 1,080 sq ft in the Green Belt and the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
As a one-off rural conversion, the property had few direct comparables, so the valuer looked further afield for evidence. The borrower’s record on the site carried the weight in the development finance application. The neighbouring conversion is complete, and the new barn is the next phase of a four-barn scheme.
9Y took additional security over one of the other barns on the site, which let it increase lending and give the borrower a higher day-one advance. The facility, around 74% of the £700,000 gross development value, runs for 12 months.
Of that, £50,000 was advanced on day one, with the balance drawn in stages over a seven-to-nine-month build and interest rolled up. Planning conditions had already been discharged, and the loan moved from application to completion over the summer, with the borrower on site and under way immediately.
The borrower intends to sell on completion. The alternative is to hold the barn as a short-term let, as the borrower already does with the neighbouring conversion on Airbnb. That route would normally need a specialist refinance, but the borrower’s track record in short lets gave 9Y the confidence to back it.
“A strong developer, a proven plan, and a site they know inside out,” said Karen Bennett, founder and managing director of 9Y Capital. “Our job was to structure it so the funding worked, and they could keep their focus on the build. The flexibility to take additional security let us do exactly that.”
“My client had strong, directly relevant experience, having already converted a barn on this very site,” noted Simon Ryder, director at First Financial Intermediaries.
“9Y focused on that track record, thoughtfully structured the facility around it, and kept things moving throughout. It is exactly the kind of common-sense lending brokers value.”
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