Funding Circle set for property market move

The range will include residential and commercial development finance and buy-to-let products as well as a range of commercial mortgages for owner occupied trading premises.

Luke Jooste, head of real estate finance at Funding Circle, said: "2014 will be the year that we offer property finance deals to our investors and we are currently finalising how we take the proposition to market.

“We're looking to launch soon and very much hope the broker market will support it as we are looking to become a significant player in the sector.

“We've just passed £200m lent, £130m of which was lent in 2013 alone, and intermediaries continue to be instrumental in our growth."

Funding Circle is well placed to enter the market with over 20,000 active investors looking for diversity in their portfolio.

And with many banks still not lending to small property companies the move has been welcomed by the wider industry.

Christian Faes of fellow peer-to-peer lender LendInvest said: "We have an open dialogue with Funding Circle and are maintaining a close relationship with the guys there.

“We welcome Funding Circle's look at the mortgage lending space. There are a lot of 'website operators' trying to jump on the peer-to-peer bandwagon, but Funding Circle are a genuine P2P lender.

“It is interesting that they are trying to branch away from SME loans, as we thought that was their core offering, however it seems that they are looking for more deals and the mortgage market is an area they are looking to for that."