‘I want the broker to think of LendInvest as the go to lender on their bridging deals’: Meet our BDM Mia Colgan

Written by Luke Stevenson

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See all of our bridging, development and Buy-to-Let rates and offers here.

I joined my first lender, Dragonfly Property Finance (now Octopus Real Estate), in 2014 after finishing my Degree at University. I initially joined the team in an operations type role and then after 9 months I was promoted to Internal Business Development Manager.

I stayed at this company for 4 ½ years before joining LendInvest as a Business Development Manager in February 2019.

I heard about the job through a friend and former colleague, Victoria, who told me there was a position available.

I was delighted to work with Victoria again and learn about LendInvest’s products, even though the vast Buy-to-Let offering and criteria was quite daunting at the beginning! Victoria and I work together on the sales desk, focussing our expertise on bridging finance.

Enquiries come in through an email, or a call to our desk, and we will send out terms and stay in contact with the broker in order to receive these applications.

A lot of our role is also about building relationships, I want the broker to think of LendInvest as the go to lender on their bridging deals.

Tackling complexity

I love working on the more complex deals and coming up with a solution in order to assist the broker/client with their loan. I also enjoy seeing repeat business on more ‘vanilla deals’ from brokers that I deal a lot with and watching them fly through to completion.

The team environment is a great one as well – we motivate each other, have a laugh and make sure we provide the best service possible to all the brokers that come to us.

We have been constantly improving that in the two years I’ve been here, a lot has changed.

There are new systems on which we input our deals, which are a lot more streamlined and makes the overall process for the deal journey smoother.

Between our team, we have each had a record in number of completions in the last 2 quarters, so through our evolving ways of operating, something is clearly working!

Case studies: The 17 small bridging deals we completed in 1 week

This is great progress after the last year, which has been something no one could have predicted and pre-plan for.

I think it has been good to challenge companies to think fast and adapt to the circumstances over the past year.

I was lucky to work the whole time through the pandemic and, at times, it was really tough. We had the same amount of business, with less people working and dealing with enquiries and we were keen for service to not slip. Also, as a lot of other lenders pulled back on products and scaled back on LTVS, we stood strong – offering the same LTVs we have always done pre-pandemic.

I think this shows resilience and trust that as long as we are sure in our decision making on deals i.e. the security we are lending on, the borrower etc; we were comfortable to still have faith in our deals.

The lending landscape

I think it is a tough market for first time buyers or people looking to move, as there is a huge demand for places to buy, but not enough on the market; so this is driving up prices and competition.

I think there will be a lot of opportunity in the commercial market space, as a lot of people are working from home and shops and other retail will have suffered, this will bring about a lot of opportunities for investors to snap up cheaper retail space – it just depends on what they look to do with it in the future.

We are still seeing investors buying and refurbing residential properties and as we know, people always need somewhere to live, be it rent or buy!

Learn more about our bridging operations team: Q&A with Bridging Operations manager Artesa Ormeni

I have first-hand experience of the current market having bought my first house last October, so lockdown has been a slight blessing for me as the house has needed work doing to it (and I haven’t missed out on any social events!)

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to stay at my parents house whilst I have been renovating, but it really has given me a respect for the work and time that goes into doing up a house!

After that I look forward to getting back to socialising, trying new restaurants and meeting the team again and being able to have a cocktail or two!

See all of our bridging, development and Buy-to-Let rates and offers here.

You can Mia on LinkedIn and call her with your latest deal on 020 3905 7861.

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