Enquiries about commercial mortgage finance have jumped 44 per cent in the last month, according to broker Mortgages for Business.

The increase is down to increased confidence in the market, says the broker. One year on from the demise of Lehman Brothers, investors and businesses feel ready to re-enter the market.

Steve Olejnik, head of sales said: “The largest increase has been in placing traditional mortgages for trading businesses and commercial investments – but we’ve seen more HMOs, limited company buy to lets, residential developments and semi-commercial enquiries, too. Mortgages for Business have been dealing with commercial mortgages for the past 20 years and none of us have seen an uplift like this before.”

MD David Whittaker said: “This explosion in commercial business is the result of the recent run of house prices increases. Price rises are encouraging small developers to review projects that were not viable at the beginning of the summer. Suddenly, developers need to finance the purchase of sites to build properties on so they can have stock ready for sale in the summer of 2010.”

Whittaker added that most of the major high street lenders are still very risk-averse, and it’s been the boutique firms who are jump starting the commercial finance revival.

“We are experiencing this upswing because high street banks are unwilling to support new projects. They’re still trying to bolster their balance sheets, and demonstrate greater liquidity and return on funds. So borrowers are turning to specialists like us.

“Furthermore, our relationships with the main commercial lenders – including Aldermore – have really come through for us recently. This is funding that is not accessible to a large number of brokers. As a result, we’ve been placing a number of complicated deals that our peers haven’t been able to handle.”

Base Commercial Mortgages Limited, the specialist commercial mortgage lender which was forced to stop lending last year as a direct result of the credit crisis, is planning to restart lending via a limited panel of commercial finance brokers.

So far, Mortgages for Business has joined the panel, with more intermediaries to sign up imminently. Product details have not yet been announced yet, but David Whitaker, chief executive of Mortgages for Business suggested that the company is looking to launch slowly over the summer, and then really start promoting its services to the wider market as the industry heats up in the autumn.

The decision follows the recent acquisition of Ruffler Bank by Base’s backers, AnaCap Financial Partners, which gives Base access to retail funding. Base and Ruffler Bank are in the process of merging their operations to create a strongly capitalised business which is ideally positioned to provide a competitive range of property and asset finance facilities to small and medium sized businesses throughout the country.

“Base’s return to the market is a good sign for the commercial finance industry,” said Whitaker. “Because they’re not the biggest player, the amount they lend is unlikely to kickstart everything else, but I think it will increase confidence throughout the market.

Mark Stephens, chief executive at Base, said: “We’re delighted to be back in the commercial mortgage market once again, but are very mindful that we need to maintain a tight control over both business quality and volumes.”