2012 was an interesting and challenging year for lenders and investors working in the property investor market. There has been a significant fall in lending during the economic downturn but opportunities will always exist and as a specialist lender, Shawbrook wants to help property investors to take advantage of these.

One of the key issues which investors faced in 2012 was access to funding. Many found that the high street banks shifted their focus to cross-selling, meaning experienced professionals found themselves increasingly marginalised. Many of the larger banks exited the market altogether, while others looked to reduce their portfolio offering to the sector. From speaking to those on the ground at the various events we attended, it was apparent that some property professionals were even being asked to re-finance by their existing banks, despite what were often long-term relationships. We also saw that the larger banks were focusing on vanilla products which were not always tailored to specialist investors.But new banks and lenders like Shawbrook are offering a viable alternative. Our no-nonsense products cater for experienced property investors and 2012 saw the bank provide over £150m of funding to the market. We want to grow this figure and have ambitious plans to lend more than £500m to the sector over the next two years.

It's our ability to work on more complicated deals that makes us stand out. When we launched in 2011 we had 83 commercial mortgage customers on our books. This has risen to 821. This is not only down to our hard work, but the commitment and expert knowledge of our network of brokers and intermediaries.