Would I invest in this myself?

Every broker has a process for evaluating a deal — usually some version of “does this fit a lender?” I have a slightly different one. Before any of that, I ask: would I invest in this myself? Would I, personally, write a cheque against this deal? That question came from a previous career in investor relations and structured funding, and it’s the most useful habit I’ve brought into broking.

The question forces you to think like the person on the other side of the transaction, not the person asking for the money. If the answer is no — if I wouldn’t put my own money in — then I need to understand why, and what would need to change to turn it into a yes. That’s a much sharper diagnostic than “does this technically fit a lender’s box”. A deal that ticks the box can still be a bad deal. A deal that wouldn’t get my money probably isn’t getting a lender’s either — even if the numbers technically work.

The high-net-worth investors I used to work with had a related habit that property professionals could borrow. They started pessimistically. They picked apart every reason a deal wouldn’t work — the exit, the comparables, the borrower’s track record, the build cost assumptions — before they entertained any of the reasons it would. By the time they’d worked through their doubts, what was left was a deal they could genuinely commit to, or one they’d correctly walk away from. The discipline isn’t to look for reasons to say yes. It’s to look for reasons to say no until you can’t find them.

That mindset is how we approach bridging and development finance, auction finance and the wider specialist book. By the time a deal of ours lands on a lender’s desk, the awkward questions have already been asked and answered. The exit has already been scrutinised. The risks have already been called out. It’s not magic — it’s borrowing a habit from a world that’s pickier with money than the broker market has tended to be. Meet the team behind the discipline.