A look back at 2022 and forward to 2023

As we entered 2022, following two years of COVID disruption, Avamore’s plan was simple. We wanted to get back to doing what we do best; supplying industry leading service and funding to our clients in the residential development space and providing a hard-working and entrepreneurial culture to help mould our young property professionals into industry leaders.

We don’t think any of us could have confidently predicted what the year would bring. We have seen 3 Prime Ministers, 4 Chancellors, a new Monarch, and a war in Europe. Against this backdrop you might imagine that the UK property and lending markets would have been benign and dull. No chance. It was a year of rampant inflation, rapid rate increases and predicted HPI decreases. At one point in time the latest two-year fixed mortgage rate was the BBC News main headline for at least a couple of weeks. “When is your mortgage rate up?” became the go-to opening question at dinner parties.

In previous years our success was built on reliability. In this volatile environment in 2022 we have been able to build on that reliability and show our clients how flexible and adaptable we can be. The first six months we wrote some great deals, implemented some excellent changes to our processes and launched a brand-new calculator for use by our broker partners.

When the market began shifting under our feet, almost daily at times, we were able to remain nimble by sticking to our 'credit first' approach to lending whilst remaining flexible with how we supported our borrowers. We made quick and decisive updates to credit appetite when required and introduced an internal credit memo so all colleagues not only knew what the policy updates were, but that they understood the logic behind it which is key to being able to provide clarity to our clients on our ability to finance their schemes.

We continued this into the second half of the year, and we kept our ears open when speaking to our clients regarding what products they most needed during this time. We redesigned our entire product set, launched our first ever floating rate and adapted our internal processes to achieve successful outcomes for our broker and developer partners. We continued this right up until the end with the introduction of our Better Bridging product in Q4, with the aim of providing a streamlined bridging solution to assist our clients when they most needed it.

Being part of the specialist lending sector in times like these are when we show what we are really about; being creative and finding solutions to problems. I think we can both confidently say that we’ve enjoyed the challenges that 2022 presented, even going so far to say that it’s been one of our most rewarding years ever. Being part of a team so dedicated to achieving good outcomes for the business and our clients has been a privilege.

As we look forward to 2023, it would be foolish to be too bullish in the face of such uncertainty, but one thing we are sure of is our ability and willingness to continue to deliver for our clients come what may. We did this throughout 2022, and we plan to do it all over again in 2023.