Nearly three quarters of development finance brokers are expecting their businesses to grow in 2015 according to research carried out by United Trust Bank.

The specialist lender found that the majority of brokers operating in development finance have a positive outlook for the coming year with nearly two thirds predicting their volumes of development finance business will increase.

Development finance brokers’ predictions for 2015:

62% - Likely to increase volumes of development finance business
33% - Likely to see business volumes remain about the same
4%    - Likely to see business volumes fall during 2015

However, brokers also said they still finding the high street banks averse to development finance deals with half of them having their most recent proposals turned down.

Executive Director at UTB, Noel Meredith, said these findings reflect its achievement in increasing development finance lending every year for the last five years but is aware of the future challenges to the sector.

“It’s also encouraging to see that despite recent cooling at the top end of the London property market, concerns or a Eurozone recession and the inevitable uncertainty provided by a general election, most brokers are optimistic about their prospects for 2015,” said Noel.

“One of the biggest challenges facing the next government will be tackling the fundamental housing shortage and SME developers can, and will, play a significant role in providing some of the many thousands of new homes we need to build in this country.

“Development finance brokers help builders to source the most appropriate funding for their projects and we look forward to working very closely with our broker partners as we continue to develop our own business throughout 2015.”

Also in regards to 2014’s business levels, development finance brokers charted the following volumes: