Commercial mortgages in Edinburgh

The Edinburgh commercial property market we work with

Edinburgh's commercial stock breaks down into recognisable segments, and lenders treat each differently. Offices dominate the picture: the professional and financial-services firms that define the city occupy space through the New Town, around St Andrew Square and George Street, and in the purpose-built Exchange district off Lothian Road, and both owner-occupiers and investors buy into that market. Retail runs from prime Princes Street and George Street frontage to neighbourhood parades in Morningside, Stockbridge and Leith, a segment where lenders watch tenant quality and lease length closely. Industrial, trade and warehouse space concentrates at Sighthill, Newbridge, Loanhead and the western edge, serving logistics, manufacturing and trade-counter operators. Mixed-use and hospitality property is heavy in the Old Town, Grassmarket and around the Royal Mile, where a building might hold a ground-floor licensed venue and flats above. Each of these carries a different risk profile: an owner-occupied office for an accountancy firm, an investment retail unit let to a national tenant and a mixed-use hospitality building are assessed on quite different terms. Knowing which segment your property sits in tells us where to take the case.

Owner-occupier versus investment mortgages

Commercial mortgages split broadly into two types, and the distinction drives everything. An owner-occupier mortgage is for a business buying premises it will trade from, such as an Edinburgh professional firm buying its New Town office or a manufacturer buying its unit at Newbridge. Here the lender assesses the trading business behind the loan, because your own profits service the debt, and it can be a strong alternative to renting for an established, profitable company. An investment mortgage is for property held to let, where the rent from tenants services the loan, so the lender focuses on the lease, the tenant covenant and the rental cover as much as on you. Both are typically longer-term, secured on the property, and priced against loan-to-value, the strength of the income or trading business and the term. Some lenders specialise in owner-occupier lending to trading businesses, others in investment property, and appetite varies by sector and property type. We help Edinburgh borrowers understand which route fits, but the lender sets the loan-to-value, rate and terms based on its own assessment.

How CoreFi arranges it

As a broker, our role is to match your Edinburgh property to commercial mortgage lenders whose criteria fit and to package the case properly. High-street banks, challenger banks and specialist commercial lenders all take different views: some are keen on owner-occupier lending to established trading businesses, some prefer investment property with strong tenants, some are comfortable with mixed-use or hospitality and some avoid it. Because we work across a whole-of-market panel rather than one funder, we can take an owner-occupier office purchase, an investment retail unit and a mixed-use Old Town building to different lenders in the same process and compare what comes back. We help you assemble the accounts, the tenancy or trading information and the property detail lenders expect, then explain the offers in plain terms. We do not lend and we do not make the credit decision; the lender assesses the property and the business and sets the loan-to-value, rate and terms. If the mortgage completes, the lender pays us a commission, so the introduction usually carries no separate cost to you.

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