A report from commercial real estate advisor CBRE says a third of those previously active in the sector have pulled out since 2007

A report from CB Richard Ellis shows that 107 lenders (banks or other financial institutions) have a commercial real estate loan book in the UK but only 69 of these are still actively lending and since 2007. 38 firms have pulled out of the market.

Head of European debt advisory at CBRE Real Estate Finance, Natale Giostra said: “There are lots of lenders with appetite to lend, but they are being very selective and there will be a lot of cherry-picking in the loans they are willing to make.There is no one bank that is willing to offer every type of loan now.”

“Whereas before, if you were a UK borrower, you would go to Royal Bank of Scotland for everything, or if you were Irish you went to Anglo Irish, now borrowers need to cherry-pick themselves and approach specific banks with specific types of deals.”

A previous report by De Montfort University suggested that more than a quarter of all commercial property loans, worth around £57bn, were either in default or in breach of banking covenants last year and this could go some way to explain the reluctance of some firms to lend to those still active in the sector.

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