Edinburgh property costs more than anywhere else in Scotland, so the loans are bigger and the closing dates are sharper. We arrange bridging finance from £75k and buy to let finance for investors and limited companies buying in the capital, from a one-bedroom flat in Leith to a block in Gorgie. Independent and tied to no lender. We search more than 200 lenders through specialist sourcing platforms. It is never for a home you or your family will live in.
Most Edinburgh property worth having goes to a closing date: a deadline, sealed best offers, and the seller’s solicitor choosing the strongest. A strong offer is a deliverable one, and a vague promise from a lender who rarely completes in Scotland counts for little. A bridge with terms shaped before the deadline lets you offer like a cash buyer and refinance once the work is done or the tenancy is in place. Two to three weeks is realistic in Scotland. Faster is possible on simple cases. Values here are high enough that the £75k minimum is rarely the issue; the question is usually how much of a large price a lender will take, which is where refurbishment bridging and the bridge to let calculator earn their keep.
Two thirds of Edinburgh’s homes are flats, and about 80,000 of them were built before 1945, the highest share of pre-war housing of any Scottish council, according to the council’s draft housing strategy of January 2025. For an investor that means Marchmont and Bruntsfield tenements, the four-storey stairs of Leith and Gorgie, and the colonies: the nineteenth-century double flats in Stockbridge, Abbeyhill, Dalry and Shandon where each flat has its own front door on opposite sides of the block.
Lenders like the demand but check the same things on all of them. Common repairs and the factor’s statement. Listed or conservation-area status, which changes what a refurbishment costs and whether windows can be replaced like for like. And in the ex-council blocks of places like Wester Hailes, mixed ownership with no formal factor, which slows any common repair.
Since 5 September 2022 the whole of the City of Edinburgh has been a short-term let control area. Using a flat that is not your own home as a short-term let normally needs planning permission as well as a licence. For lenders, that means an Edinburgh flat is valued and financed as a long-term let unless the planning permission and licence are already in place. Do not buy on holiday-let numbers you cannot get consent for.
Licensed HMOs cluster around the Meadows, Marchmont, Bruntsfield and the University of Edinburgh’s George Square campus, with more along Dalkeith Road, Leith Walk and Pilrig; Heriot-Watt at Riccarton and Napier’s campuses add demand further out. The council’s January 2025 strategy counts 6,325 HMOs, almost 10% of registered private lets. Edinburgh has not adopted an HMO overprovision policy (the council judged one unjustified in 2014 and we have found no later change), but planning still matters: City Plan 2030 tests conversions to an HMO for five or more people against its policy on uses in residential areas. Our page on HMO finance in Scotland covers licensing and how lenders value them.
Edinburgh rents are high, but so are values, and on a buy to let refinance the rental test can still limit the loan before the loan to value cap does. Run both before you commit, and pick the term lender before you take the bridge. Our page on bridge to let finance covers the six month rule some lenders apply to recent purchases.
Edinburgh’s law firms, accountants, architects, consultancies and contractors deliver first and get paid 30, 60 or 90 days later. Invoice finance releases most of an invoice’s value when it is raised, typically 80 to 90% (indicative), and grows with turnover rather than sitting at a fixed limit. Our invoice finance page covers confidential and single-invoice facilities, and for a firm buying its own office at the same time, the two are often arranged together.
Buy, refurbish, refinance
The bridge, the works, LBTT and ADS, and both refinance tests in one sum. Bridge to let calculator
Relevant products
How Scottish lending works
Missives, standard securities, LBTT and which lenders actually lend here. The Scotland guide
Work the numbers
LBTT and ADS, bridging costs, commercial mortgage payments and rental cover, before you offer. Free calculators
An Edinburgh purchase or refinance? Send the basics before your closing date, not after.