I’m often asked this question, and by bankers in particular. I understand, I was a banker once myself and was equally mystified at the time.

The fact is that not only do intelligent and capable developers use brokers, but they are increasingly more inclined to do so. There are good reasons for this:

Developers do ‘developments’. In the process of that they have to wear many hats in a challenging world. They outsource what they can, where it can be done well and cost-effectively. Finding development funding is a task that can be outsourced.

It is no longer as easy as just going to your established main bank. Firstly many of them no longer do development finance, and where they do they have very selective policies. Although you may be an excellent developer with a long track record with the bank, if the development itself doesn’t meet their criteria you may not get the backing you need. Here’s my advice on what to do.