The father and daughter duo celebrating holiday let success in Cornwall
A father and daughter duo who embarked upon their holiday let business journey in 2017 are now thriving with a six-property portfolio, thanks to support from The Cumberland.
Mark Largan and his daughter Samantha, from Hertfordshire, purchased their first property in June 2017 after the death of Mark’s wife and Samantha’s mother in 2016. Samantha was working as a surveyor at the time and had a flair for interior design which sparked the idea to go into holiday lets.
Mark said: “Samantha has always been incredibly creative, and it was during her time working as a surveyor that she really honed her interior design skills.
“After the death of my wife and Samantha’s mother, we had the idea to work on a project together. We purchased our first property, Kelmscot based in Trelights, a small hamlet outside Port Issac, and Samantha furnished the interiors to an incredibly high standard.”
The holiday let proved to be so successful that the pair set out to transform another property. After finding a property based in Little Pethererick, just outside Padstow, the Largans approached The Cumberland to obtain their second holiday let mortgage.
Additionally, Mark and Samantha undertook the complete renovation of Rose Lodge, a grade 2 listed building which sits between Truro and Falmouth.
Linda Slinger, Intermediary Relationship Manager at The Cumberland said: “The Largans first approached us in 2017 enquiring about a holiday-let mortgage. After seeing the success of Kelmscot, their first property together, we were delighted to be able to offer them the support they needed.”
Since then, Largan Estates has invested in property in Porlock, Somerset and Devon leading to a six-property portfolio with support from The Cumberland. The pair now have their eyes set on further properties in the Devon and Somerset regions.
Mark continued: “The Cumberland have been pivotal in supporting our business and helping it to grow.
“The main noticeable difference about working with The Cumberland is that you speak to real people who listen to your vision and work with you to make it happen. They took a holistic approach to our application and were flexible, pragmatic, and looked at the bigger picture of what we wanted to achieve.”
Linda Slinger explains: “The Cumberland offers a relationship-managed approach to commercial lending. A lot of high-street lenders have now digitalised with customers unable to meet a representative from the bank or building society in-person and are instead sent to a central call centre to speak with a different advisor each time.
“Whilst digitalisation is beneficial to both the lender and the customer, we believe that nurturing those relationships with face-to-face contact is just as important and that’s why we offer both in-person and video call appointments to all our customers.”
Linda continues: “Our relationship managed approach means that we take a holistic view of each case, looking at the wider context and not just cash in the bank. It also means that each customer is allocated a Relationship Manager who works with them from start to finish, really getting to know each individual business, its purpose and its goals.”
Hoping to support more people in achieving their dreams, The Cumberland has recently appointed a new Head of Intermediary Lending as it continues its distribution expansion supporting brokers providing specialist holiday-let mortgages and residential mortgages.
Grant Seaton, Head of Intermediary Lending says: “It is an exciting time for The Cumberland as we ramp up our efforts in delivering a quality service to our trusted mortgage broker partners, whilst providing working solutions for the end customer.
“A key ambition of The Cumberland is to expand and modernise our services while at the same time applying our Kinder Banking purpose, which puts people and communities at the heart of everything we do.”
For more information on how we can support you and your holiday let business, visit our business page.