The bridging lender said growth would be driven by the housing shortage, the demand for property investors and buy-to-let investors and the lack of alternative funding on the high street, as well as the booming private sector and the professionalisation of the industry.
The bridging market was worth an estimated £700m a year in 2010. By the end of the first half of 2011, it is being valued at about £750m a year said West One.
Duncan Kreeger, chairman of West One Loans, said: “The amount the industry is lending has grown significantly amount over the last six months.
“Conservative estimates suggest lenders are writing £750m worth of business every year at the moment, which is about 7% more than in the winter of 2010.
Kreegar said there was no reason why factors at work including the growth in the private rented sector, strict lending criteria on the high street and the professionalisation of the sector would not continue to drive the bridging market.
“In those circumstances the market will grow at a similar rate over the next two years. That will see us break the £1bn barrier by the summer of 2013,” he said.
“As a specialist provider of short-term bridging finance, we are benefitting from the trend and to deal with the new business, we’ve had to ramp up our expansion and start hiring more staff. That will soon start to happen across the industry.”
