Commercial Mortgage Broker Cardiff, 90+ Lenders
Owner-occupier freeholds. Commercial investment with ICR-led underwriting. Semi-commercial shop-with-flat. Portfolio refinance for landlords carrying five-plus assets. Trading-business mortgages for pubs, hotels, care homes, dental, MOT and nurseries. Commercial remortgage. Commercial bridging. Second-charge behind a senior facility. Eight products, one broker, a 90+ lender panel covering high-street, challenger and Welsh-active specialist desks. Indicative terms in 48 hours. Commercial mortgages are unregulated lending and fall outside the Financial Conduct Authority's regulated mortgage perimeter, where a deal would require regulated permissions, we refer to a regulated firm.
Where the deals are placed across Cardiff and the Cardiff Capital Region
From the Central Square (CF10) office investment market (BBC Cymru Wales, HMRC, Blake Morgan, Hodge Bank) through the Capital Quarter (Tyndall Street) professional-services cluster (Admiral Group plc HQ, Hugh James, Deloitte), the Cardiff Bay / Mermaid Quay mixed-use waterfront, the Cathays and Maindy (CF24) student belt and Cardiff Innovation Campus, the Pontcanna and Riverside (CF11) premium semi-commercial spine, and the Cardiff Gate Business Park (M4 J30) and Wentloog industrial corridor. Use the map below to see live placement activity across the City and County of Cardiff.
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Owner-occupied commercial mortgages, buying your business's freehold
When the business buys the building it trades from, the lending test is EBITDA cover, trading profit measured against the monthly mortgage payment, with a typical comfort threshold of 1.3 to 1.5x. This is the dental partnership taking a Pontcanna or Llandaff surgery freehold off a retiring principal; the accountancy firm converting a Central Square lease into a Tyndall Street floor purchase; the engineering business buying its Tremorfa trade-counter unit off the landlord; the life-sciences SME taking a Maindy Road freehold next to the Cardiff Innovation Campus. Two years of clean filed accounts is the standard minimum. LTV runs to 75%, deposits of 25 to 30% are typically funded from accumulated retained profit (and occasionally capital-released equity from a director's home).
Allica Bank, Shawbrook, Hampshire Trust Bank, Cambridge & Counties and Cynergy Bank sit at the sweet spot for owner-occupier lending. Lloyds commercial banking, NatWest, Barclays and Santander all run South Wales corporate desks and price competitively where the covenant is strong and the sector is mainstream. Principality Building Society and Hodge Bank, both Cardiff-headquartered, also feature for Welsh-resident owner-occupier borrowers on the right archetypes. Mid-2026 interest rates: 6.0 to 7.5% pa. Term length is the lever that materially changes affordability, extending repayment from 15 to 20 years frequently clears the EBITDA test where rate alone will not. Owner-occupier sits outside FCA regulation in most cases (it is a business borrowing for business premises, not a residential mortgage).
Sectors with the deepest lender appetite in Cardiff: dental and primary-care practices (the Pontcanna and Llandaff suburban belt and the University Hospital of Wales / Heath catchment), accountancy, legal and other professional services across Central Square and Capital Quarter, light industrial and trade-counter in Splott, Tremorfa and the Wentloog corridor, and independent retail across Albany Road, Wellfield Road and Whitchurch Road. Sector-specialist trades, care home, MOT, day nursery, route through trading-business mortgages instead.
Owner-occupier guide →Commercial investment mortgages, buying or refinancing let stock
A commercial investment mortgage is long-term debt against a let property held as an income-producing asset. The borrower is usually a limited company SPV, an LLP, or an individual investor; the security is the building; the affordability test is rent against the cost of borrowing. The headline metric is ICR (interest cover ratio), gross rent divided by interest cost, typically required at 140 to 160% stressed at a notional rate 1 to 2% above pay rate. Some lenders also test DSCR on a fully-amortising basis at 130 to 145% cover. LTVs of 65 to 75% are standard for income-producing assets with a clear lease.
Tenant covenant and lease length carry as much weight as LTV. A 10-year unbroken FRI lease to a national covenant on a Central Square office floor (BBC Cymru Wales, HMRC and Welsh Government covenant-adjacent stock) prices materially better than three two-year leases to local independents on a secondary suburban parade. NatWest, Lloyds, Barclays and Santander compete hard on prime single-asset investment; Shawbrook, InterBay Commercial, LendInvest and Together cover the trickier end (multi-let, short-WAULT, semi-commercial, vacant-with-refurb). Interest rates currently 6.5 to 8.5% pa.
Active areas: City centre Queen Street and St David's retail, Cardiff Bay and Mermaid Quay mixed-use waterfront, Capital Quarter office investment, and the Roath and Cathays semi-commercial portfolios.
Investment mortgage guide →Semi-commercial, shop-with-flat and mixed-use stock
Semi-commercial finance funds mixed-use property where the residential element is at least 40% of total floorspace, the classic shop-with-flat-above archetype that defines Cardiff suburban high streets like Albany Road and Wellfield Road in Roath (CF24), Pontcanna Street (CF11), Cowbridge Road East in Canton (CF5), and Whitchurch Road in Heath (CF14). The flat above gives lenders residential security comfort, so semi-commercial routinely prices 50 to 100bps inside pure commercial investment.
InterBay Commercial (part of OSB Group) and Shawbrook are the two most active named desks; LendInvest, Together, Aldermore, YBS Commercial and Hampshire Trust Bank also quote actively. The lending test combines commercial rent and residential AST income on a blended basis, with cover typically required at ~145%. LTV to 75% is achievable on standard archetypes. The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 (in force from 1 December 2022) sits over the residential leg, lenders factor it into the AST-side underwrite. Where the borrower will personally occupy one of the flats, the deal can fall under FCA-regulated mortgage rules, we flag that at outset and route to a regulated lender if it applies.
Common Cardiff archetypes: shop with one to three flats over (Albany Road, Wellfield Road, Pontcanna Street, Cowbridge Road East, Whitchurch Road), pub or restaurant with operator flat above on Pontcanna Street and Mermaid Quay, and Class E (Welsh Use Classes equivalent) to residential conversions where consent is for ground-floor retail plus four to six apartments on upper floors. For HMO conversions across Cathays and Roath see our HMO block page.
Semi-commercial guide →Portfolio refinancing, five assets and up, one facility
Portfolio refinance is the right structure when you are carrying five or more commercial investment assets and the patchwork of individual mortgages, maturity dates and lender relationships has become operationally heavy. Consolidating into a single facility, secured as a blanket charge across the portfolio, or as individual charges aggregated against a single limit, gives you one interest rate, one renewal date, and one set of covenants to manage.
Shawbrook, Cambridge & Counties, InterBay Commercial and Cynergy Bank are the most active portfolio lenders for the £2M to £15M Cardiff bracket. OakNorth and Reliance Bank cover larger facility sizes. Aggregate ICR is tested across the portfolio at 140 to 150%; tenant concentration matters (more than 20 to 25% of income from one tenant tightens pricing); sector concentration matters; Cardiff Capital Region geographic concentration is fine.
Typical mid-2026 terms: LTV 65 to 70% across the portfolio, term 5 to 25 years (most landlords take a 5-year fix inside a 20 to 25 year amortisation), pricing 6.5 to 8.0% pa. The portfolios we see most often: Cathays and Roath student-let and semi-commercial books across CF24, premium Pontcanna and Llandaff portfolios across CF11 and CF5, and Cardiff Gate and Coryton mid-market business-park portfolios across CF23 and CF14. We model the portfolio every which way before approaching lenders so the credit pack lands clean first time.
Portfolio refinance guide →Trading-business mortgages, pubs, care homes, dental, MOT, nurseries
Trading-business mortgages fund operational property where value is bound up with the business that runs from it. Pubs and bars on St Mary Street, High Street and Mermaid Quay; restaurants on Pontcanna Street and Mill Lane; hotels around Cardiff Central, the Principality Stadium and Cardiff Bay; care homes in the Heath, Birchgrove and Llanishen (CF14) premium cluster and the Llandaff / Whitchurch corridor; MOT and petrol forecourts along the A48 / M4 corridor and the A470; day nurseries in Pontcanna, Llandaff and Cyncoed; dental practices around the University Hospital of Wales (Heath) and on Pontcanna Street, Wellfield Road and Llandaff High Street; creative trading freeholds adjacent to BBC Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff Bay.
Pubs: barrelage, EBITDA, beer-tie status, license, Cynergy Bank and ASK Partners dominate, with Six Nations and rugby-international hospitality flow worth noting around the Principality Stadium calendar. Hotels: occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, with the Six Nations / international rugby premium baked into Cardiff trading. Care homes: Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) rating (the Welsh regulator, not CQC), occupancy, weighted-average bed value, council and private fee mix, Shawbrook, Cambridge & Counties and Hampshire Trust Bank hold significant South Wales books, particularly across the CF14 / CF5 / CF23 premium cluster. Dental: NHS UDA value plus private fee mix. MOT: VOSA approval, environmental due diligence. Nursery: Care Inspectorate Wales registration, registered places, occupancy.
LTVs run 60 to 70%, term 15 to 25 years, interest rates 7.0 to 9.0% pa. Different sub-sectors route to different lenders, getting the right desk first time saves three weeks. Trade-specific landing pages: pub & restaurant, leisure & hospitality, care home & healthcare, MOT / garage / petrol, nursery & school.
Trading-business guide →Refinancing existing commercial debt, end-of-fix and capital raise
Commercial remortgage covers two distinct moments. End of a typical 5-year fix maturing into a different rate environment; or capital-raise refinancing that releases equity from a property that has appreciated since the original draw. With Bank of England base-rate trajectory through 2026 looking flatter than the 2023 to 2024 cycle, refinancing demand into Cardiff is strong, particularly on assets bought 2019 to 2021 where current valuations support a meaningfully better LTV than the original facility.
The first conversation is always ERC (early repayment charge) handling. If you are inside an ERC window, the maths often still works, saving 1.5% on rate over a fresh five-year term outweighs an ERC of 3% of redemption on most £1M+ facilities. We model both sides before recommending. Some lenders pay-down ERC against new arrangement fees; we know which.
For end-of-fix the underwriting story is usually clean, known asset, known borrower, known track record. NatWest, Lloyds, Barclays, Santander, Shawbrook, Allica, Hampshire Trust Bank, Cambridge & Counties and InterBay Commercial all compete on clean Cardiff remortgage business. Principality Building Society (Cardiff-HQ) and Hodge Bank (Cardiff-HQ) both feature on Welsh-resident remortgage cases. Pricing for owner-occupier remortgage at 65% LTV on a strong covenant: 6.0 to 7.5% pa. Investment remortgage 6.5 to 8.0% pa.
Remortgage guide →Commercial bridging, short-term debt with a clean term-out
Commercial bridging is the right route when you are acquiring a property that is not immediately fundable on a long-term mortgage, vacant, partly tenanted, mid-refurbishment, or acquired at auction with a 28-day completion clock. A 12 to 24 month bridge funds the acquisition (and any refurb / re-letting work), with an agreed exit onto a long-term commercial investment mortgage once the asset is income-producing.
LendInvest, Shawbrook, Together, OakNorth and Hampshire Trust Bank are the most active commercial bridging desks for the Cardiff £500K to £5M bracket. Bridge interest rates currently run 0.75 to 1.10% pm (8.5 to 11.0% pa equivalent); term-out pricing back to mainstream 6.5 to 8.0% pa once the property stabilises and the ICR test passes. Interest can be serviced monthly or rolled-up; LTVs to 70% on current value, sometimes 75% on day-one purchase price plus 100% of refurb costs against GDV.
Where this works particularly well in Cardiff: Central Quay change-of-use opportunities on the former Brains Brewery site (the Vastint UK 11.5-acre regen pipeline), Atlantic Wharf and Cardiff Bay leisure-to-mixed-use conversions, Splott and Tremorfa former-industrial parcels heading to mixed-use, Whitchurch Road and Albany Road A1-to-A3 conversions, and trading businesses bought as going concerns where the new operator needs 12 months of accounts before a high-street remortgage will engage. Welsh Use Classes apply to any change-of-use underwrite (Wales has not adopted the post-2020 English Class E framework, the Classes Order 1987 as amended for Wales governs).
Commercial bridging guide →Second-charge commercial, capital release without breaking the senior
A second-charge commercial mortgage sits behind your existing first-charge facility, secured against the same property. The senior lender retains priority; the second-charge lender takes a subordinated position. You keep the existing first-charge interest rate intact (and avoid breaking ERCs) while raising additional debt against the same security. The use case is narrow but valuable, typically a 3.5 to 4.5% legacy fix from the 2019 to 2021 era where breaking it would cost more than taking the second-charge route.
InterBay Commercial, Together, United Trust Bank and select private-credit desks are the active second-charge commercial lenders for Cardiff. Pricing reflects subordinated risk: 10 to 14% pa typically, arrangement fees of 2 to 3%. Combined LTV (first plus second) usually capped at 70 to 75%, occasionally flexed to 80% on strong investment cases.
It is a niche product but the right answer when the alternative is breaking a 4% legacy fix to consolidate at 7.5%. The senior lender has to consent to the second charge being registered (a deed of consent at £500 to £2K is standard); some high-street commercial desks refuse on policy. We confirm before formally applying.
Second-charge guide →Property Types We Finance
Commercial mortgage economics vary materially by asset class, lender pools, LTV caps, DSCR/ICR thresholds and pricing all shift with the property type. Each of our services applies across the full range of Cardiff asset classes.
Available across the wider city network
Every commercial mortgage product on this page is also available across our regional sister sites across the UK. One broker relationship, the same 90+ lender panel, genuine local market knowledge in each city.
Owner-occupier in a UK city, portfolio refinancing across the Cardiff Capital Region and South Wales, a trading-business mortgage in another regional centre, or a commercial remortgage on a regional office, the same panel, the same diagnostic process, the same unregulated commercial product set. See also <a href="https://commercialmortgagesbroker.co.uk/locations/cardiff/cardiff" class="text-secondary font-medium hover:underline">our Cardiff commercial mortgage broker hub</a>.
Which product fits your Cardiff deal?
Not sure whether the right route is owner-occupier, commercial investment, semi-commercial, portfolio or trading-business? Send the property details, the LTV you are aiming for, and a rough sense of the trading position or rental income. We will tell you which lender route is sensible and what indicative pricing looks like, within 48 hours, no charge for the assessment.
Or explore our how it works guide and case studies.