Market Sentiment as of October 2025

The upcoming Rachel Reeves budget in November has the property world on alert. Many investors are waiting to see how potential tax changes could affect them, while a growing number are choosing to incorporate and operate as limited companies.

We’re also seeing some businesses hold back on major decisions after last year’s budget impacted national insurance and operating costs. This has led to some stagnation in parts of the market, but overall, it’s been an encouraging year for ourselves at NapeX Finance, with steady progress, new partnerships, and continued development across the business.

Property Investment

Residential / Buy-to-Lets

Competition in the Buy-to-Let (BTL) market remains strong, with straightforward cases seeing rates in the early to mid-4% range, and more specialist loans typically around 5%.

We’re continuing to see healthy levels of refinancing and new investment activity, which is encouraging and reflects a relatively buoyant residential investment market.

While higher interest rates continue to pose challenges in London and the South, where yields are lower, we’ve been able to support clients with tailored refinancing solutions, helping them navigate these tighter conditions effectively.

HMOs

We’re delighted to share that NapeX Finance is now on the Rely pilot panel. Incase you didn’t know, Rely is a specialist HMO lender offering investment valuations for modernised or customised HMOs, even those outside Article 4 areas. With market-leading rates, this partnership opens up more opportunities for our customers and we’re already rolling it out across our network..

Portfolios

We’re seeing new lenders entering the portfolio market, introducing creative refinance structures, such as allowing borrowers to complete projects before moving directly onto investment loans. Lenders are also showing more interest in offshore clients, a growing segment we’re actively supporting.

Commercial Property Investment

Semi Commercial & Commercial

Encouragingly, we’re seeing lenders reducing rates and increasing LTVs, with high street banks returning to the market with more competitive commercial products. It’s great to see fresh lender activity and continued growth in both the commercial and semi-commercial spaces as it’s creating more choice and flexibility for our customers.

Property Development

Ground-Up Residential

Lender appetite in this space continues to strengthen. We’re seeing some going above traditional thresholds, offering up to 90% loan-to-cost and 75% loan-to-GDV which is fantastic support for developers.

We’re also exploring new joint venture partnerships, combining senior debt with equity investment on profit-share structures, which is creating exciting opportunities for future projects.

Refurbishment & Conversion

Lenders are increasingly adopting digital and automated valuations, making the process quicker and more efficient. Our own lender information form and internal lending matrix have been invaluable this year, helping us benchmark and match lenders effectively, ensuring the best outcomes for our customers.

We’ve also welcomed a new lender who is offering up to 82.5% day-one and 82.5% end-value lending. This provides a fantastic opportunity for customers to move forward with projects without needing to commit large amounts of capital upfront.

Bridging

The residential bridging market remains competitive, with top margins around 0.65% per month and some blended products starting at 0.45% (featuring a lower initial period). If that does sound of interest to you, please get in touch so we can explain more.

Commercial & Land

On the commercial side, lenders are now offering up to 70% LTV, while land is reaching around 65%, which is showing real confidence in this space. These developments are great news for customers looking to buy, sell, or refinance quickly.

Business Finance

We’re seeing some standout opportunities in the commercial mortgage space, with one lender offering rates from 1.5% over base on 25-year terms, and no fees for refinances. It’s a highly competitive product and proving very popular as you can imagine.

Lenders are also refining as well as improving their business finance offerings, such as adding new business development managers and increasing focus on intermediary relationships. All of which helps us deliver even stronger results for our customers.

Get In Touch

If any of the topics listed above are of interest to you, or you simply want to contact our knowledgeable team to discuss your projects and plans, get in touch via our Contact Us page.