A house renovation loan that fits the project, not just the property

Vortex Finance is a whole-of-market refurbishment finance broker. We are not a lender, and we are not tied to one. We compare a panel of 100+ lenders on your side of the table, match the right kind of renovation finance to your project, and return indicative terms quickly. There is no fee to find out what fits.

Most of the renovation finance we arrange is for property investors and business-purpose projects — buy-to-refurbish, refinance-and-improve, and development. If you are renovating the home you live in, the cheapest route is usually a further advance or a secured homeowner loan, and where a case is a regulated homeowner mortgage we place it with a qualified adviser who handles that side properly. The point of this page is to show you the options so you can see which one is yours.

The four main ways to fund a renovation

A “house renovation loan” is not a single product. It is a question with four common answers, and the right one depends on who owns the property, how big the works are, and how you plan to repay.

A further advance or remortgage borrows more against a property you already own, on a normal mortgage rate. It is the cheapest money, but it is sized on your current equity and the lender needs the property to be habitable. A secured homeowner loan, often a second charge, sits behind your existing mortgage and is useful when you do not want to disturb a good rate you are already on. A refurbishment bridge is short-term, interest-only finance for investors, fast to arrange and able to fund works a standard mortgage would decline. Development finance is for the heaviest projects — structural works, extensions and change of use — and lends against the finished value rather than today’s.

Light refurbishment versus heavy refurbishment

Lenders split renovations into two camps, and the line between them decides which products are open to you.

Light refurbishment is cosmetic: new kitchens and bathrooms, rewiring, redecoration and modernising, with no structural change and no planning permission needed. Heavy refurbishment means structural works, extensions, conversions, or a change of use — anything that needs building regulations or planning. Light refurb is the natural home of a standard refurbishment bridge. Heavy refurb usually calls for a heavy-refurbishment bridge or development finance, because the lender is underwriting a building site for a period, not a finished home.

How much you can borrow, and against what

This is where renovation finance gets misunderstood. There are two values in play: what the property is worth now, and what it will be worth after the works — the gross development value, or GDV.

A standard refurbishment bridge usually lends up to around 75% of the current value, with the cost of the works funded in stages on top as each phase completes. Heavy refurbishment and development finance instead lend against the finished value, which can support a much larger facility for the same deposit, because the lender is backing the end result. Indicative refurbishment bridging interest runs at roughly 0.55% to 1.0% a month, with an arrangement fee of about 1% to 2%. We model both values for your project and show you which structure puts the most of the lender’s money in and the least of yours.

The buy, refurbish, refinance route

The classic investor model is buy, refurbish, refinance — often shortened to BRR. You use a bridge to buy a property cheaply and renovate it, then refinance onto a longer-term buy-to-let or commercial mortgage at the higher post-works value. The refinance repays the bridge and the works, and frequently returns most of your original cash, so you can recycle it into the next deal.

Here is a worked example. Take a flat bought for £200,000 that needs £40,000 of works. A refurbishment bridge at 75% of the purchase price releases around £150,000 towards the buy, and the £40,000 of works is drawn down in stages as each phase signs off. At an indicative 0.75% a month, interest on the outstanding balance runs at roughly £1,400 a month, typically rolled up rather than paid monthly. Once the refurbishment lifts the value to, say, £320,000, a refinance onto a buy-to-let mortgage at 75% releases £240,000 — enough to clear the bridge and the works and leave the investor holding an improved, income-producing property with most of the deposit back in hand. We arrange both the bridge and the exit, so the refinance is lined up before the works even start.

Renovating to fix the EPC and meet the rules

A growing share of renovation work is driven by energy rules. Landlords must already meet a minimum EPC rating of E to let a property (unless a valid exemption applies), and the Government has proposed raising that minimum towards EPC C in the coming years, so insulation, heating and glazing upgrades are increasingly part of the brief rather than optional. Refurbishment and buy-to-let finance can both fund this kind of improvement, and a higher EPC rating usually lifts both the value and the rent. If your project is about getting a let property compliant, read our note on the MEES regulations and we will build the EPC works into the funding plan.

Why use a whole-of-market broker

Go direct to one lender and you get one view of one product, and if your project does not fit their box you start again. We compare 100+ lenders across bridging, development finance and buy-to-let, match the right kind of finance to the size and nature of your works, and package the case so the underwriter trusts it. The right product first time is what gets a tight refurbishment deal funded on schedule.

Common questions

All rates, loan-to-values and timescales above are indicative as at June 2026. The lender confirms the final terms on application, once it has seen the property, the scope of works and your file. Vortex Finance is a broker, not a lender.