Umega Lettings

The challenge

Umega Lettings had been enjoying successful trading but co-directors Neil McInnes and Andy Whitmey were keen to pursue expansion. Despite the strength of the business, the pair found this expansion difficult to do organically. ‘In Edinburgh, where we operate, there is not a lot of ‘churn’ in the lettings market,’ explained Neil. ‘While that is good in one sense, in that we have a very safe client base, it also means it can be difficult to expand and gain new landlords and their properties. That is why we chose to undergo an acquisition and purchase the letting contracts from another letting agency.’

The solution

Neil needed £110,000 to put his plan into place and explored the traditional finance routes, meeting with the business’s relationship manager at the bank. Unfortunately, the bank couldn’t help him, as it wanted the business to secure the loan with privately-held property, which wasn’t an option for Neil. He then came across LendingCrowd and that proved to be a much more flexible and simple option.

‘With LendingCrowd, we could [secure the loan] with the business itself. So, it was a much easier process from that perspective,’ said Neil. ‘Everyone at LendingCrowd we dealt with was very helpful and the information we needed to fill out fitted one side of A4 paper – which made things a lot easier from our end!’

The outcome

Once the loan was funded, Umega Lettings could go ahead and buy the managed lettings portfolio. Now the business has gained a competitive edge, allowing it to offer something more in such a crowded market.

The portfolio of 47 properties provides £6,500 a month in management fee income, and the speed of the entire process was a surprising benefit for Neil and his team, who were all very busy during this period. He added: ‘Knowing the financing was taken care of allowed me to continue with the job at hand.’