The Intermediary

Planning technology firm GapSense has launched an AI site screening tool for brokers, lenders and landlords. The tool is designed to assess whether a site has a realistic route to planning permission in minutes and without requiring application documents. Users can enter an address, postcode, grid reference or draw a boundary directly on a map.

Hope Capital Property Finance has made several changes to its bridging proposition, aiming to offer brokers greater flexibility and faster completions. The company will now consider lending up to 75% of open market value for below market value transactions, subject to full valuation. Instant valuations are available on qualifying residential cases up to £1m, doubling the previous £500,000 limit.

Fiducia Commercial Network has partnered with Doc2 to give every appointed representative (AR) and registered individual (RI) across the network access to Doc2’s eSigning and document automation platform. All ARs and RIs now have a centralised way to create, send and eSign agreement templates, removing admin and reducing delays.

The average asking price for newly-listed homes dropped by 1.0% this month to £372,359, a larger fall than the usual 0.2% drop seen in July over the past decade, according to the latest House Price Index (HPI) from Rightmove. Market activity stayed below last year’s levels, with mortgage rate increases following the war in Iran making the first half of 2026 more challenging.

Founded in 2013, Funding 365 has originated more than 1,700 loans across the bridging, development and specialist buy-to-let (BTL) markets. In June 2026, Balbec Capital acquired Funding 365, establishing a dedicated bridging loan origination platform as it expands its European real estate capabilities. At the same time, Funding 365 secured an additional £300m facility with a global investment bank.

With no shortage of technology available in the conveyancing sector today, it would be easy to assume its provision and delivery has become largely a technology challenge and the right system can therefore solve most of the problems that brokers and their clients encounter. The reality is rather different.

There is something undeniably uplifting about the mood of the country at the moment. Perhaps it is the seemingly endless spell of sunshine, or perhaps it was England’s World Cup run giving everyone another excuse to gather in pub gardens. By the time you read this, that particular optimism has, unfortunately for many, come to an end. But while England’s World Cup dream may be over, there is still plenty for our industry to be optimistic about.

If you look at the way we talk about the property market in the UK, you’d think the only way for a 20-something year-old to buy a house is if their parents happen to be sitting on a mountain of spare cash. Oftentimes, people tend to speak about the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ like it’s a cash-printing machine where gifted deposits simply materialise overnight. But in reality, very few parents have £50,000 or more just lying around in cash savings. Most parents aren’t cash-rich, but they may own a house.

Ask most people, both in and outside the market, about the core challenge for the average first-time buyer (FTB), and they will inevitably land on the deposit. Saving a substantial chunk of funds has always been a challenge, and never more so than during a period of higher rents, cost-of-living squeezes, and economic instability. However, this is no longer the only – or even the defining – barrier to homeownership.

Affordability remains the biggest single barrier to entry to homeownership for first-time buyers (FTBs), driven by persistent cost of living pressures, reduced disposable income and stricter stress testing, with single applicants particularly affected. In fact, constraints on affordability are significantly higher than  pre-2022 levels, when after lockdown things were beginning to look up.