So you’ve got a supercar in your garage. Maybe it’s a Ferrari, perhaps an Aston Martin and if you are a fully fledged Clarksonite, possibly a Bugatti Veyron.

It’s a massive asset sitting in your garage slowly gathering dust and depreciating in value. So if cash flow is a problem in your life and you don’t have the £50,000 required to put a deposit down on your yearned-for holiday home in somewhere like Sandbanks, for example, then a specialist and upmarket pawnbroker has set up shop to help out.

Supercars lined the street in London's Mayfair

London based firm TGS suggests that, rather than sell your beloved lean machine to finance the deal, why not just pawn it? More sensitive souls might call it asset-based short term lending, but TGS says it’s just a way to get your hands on cash quickly without involving a bank.

The credit crunch has seen business expand rapidly for the firm as banks have become reluctant to lend on property transactions, even when their clients are wealthy.

Paul Zimbler, who runs TGS and has 14 shops across the capital, says he spotted this gap in the lending market by mistake. Customers had been coming to him for ‘title’ lending – which is when the borrower keeps the car but takes out a small, short-term loan against its value – but notice clients looking to borrow larger sums.

Paul says he then offered to keep the car in return for a larger loan. TGS will lend up to 70% of a vehicle’s value and loans can be for up to seven months – although typically they last one to three.

Recent deals Paul says he’s completed include £60,000 leant against an Aston Martin, £40,000 against a Porsche 911 and £100,000 against a new Bentley, all of which were used to finance property purchases. Most people use the service to pay unexpected bridging loans, finance the costs of moving home including stamp duty, or put down deposits.

Too many for sale? How can there be so many homes for sale but no buyers?

After this blog last month started a healthy debate both here and on Twitter, let’s take it to the next level. House price analysts say a glut of homes on sale and falling numbers of buyers are causing small price drops now, with perhaps more to come.

But if people buy and sell at the same time, as most surely do, why are demand and supply out of line?

The mismatch
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says in mid-2007, before the credit crunch, estate agents typically sold 45% of their stock every three months. That fell to 15% in mid-2008 before rising to 30% early this year.

But now, with more homes on sale, the sale-to-stock ratio is back down to 24%.

Exploding a myth
This increased supply suggests that in reality selling and buying do not necessarily happen simultaneously. There is a small but important time gap.

Research by Santander says 1.1m homes in Brtain were put on the market in the year to  August but did not sell, often because would-be buyers could not get a mortgage.

Some estate agents say that as a result, more sellers now wait to find a purchaser before registering as buyers themselves to avoid spending time and energy finding a dream home only to lose it because they cannot sell their old property.

“Supply and demand balance over time but there’s always a lag, never an exact balance. A year ago there were more buyers but fewer homes, so prices rose. Now it’s the reverse” says Lucian Cook, research guru at estate agent Savills.

In addition the new-build sector, which slumped in 2008 and 2009, is recovering and adds 120,000 new properties on sale per year without creating new buyers.

Dying, divorcing but not buying
A further factor is probate sales; elderly owners die and their properties are sold by relatives who already own homes – so they inherit the proceeds and do not buy. Land Registry figures show that in 2007 some 7% of deals were probate sales. But now, with home sales halved but death rates static, they account for 15% of the market.

There are also 120,000 divorces a year. Analysis by Savills shows that in a third of cases the couple sell their home and, at first, each person rents before buying later.

In the past these ‘sell-but-not-buy’ figures have been balanced or outweighed by first time buyers, who purchase with nothing to sell. But tougher mortgage conditions and average deposits rising to £35,000 mean FTB numbers are 50% of the level in 2007.

Let’s see if that starts a debate.

Q. Our home is situated in a small rural hamlet. Between our house and the one next door is a strip of land owned by a person who lives three doors down and who uses it to keep a couple of ponies. We would like to acquire the land as the owner is a very elderly man and we are fearful what might happen should he pass away and leave it to people who do not care about the two houses either side of the land. We currently have a small mortgage on our home so finance shouldn’t be a problem. Would we need to apply for a remortgage or will we have to apply for a separate mortgage on the land?

A. Yes, you could remortgage subject to your having sufficient equity in your home and a good credit rating. Alternatively, if you have had your mortgage for a while and are not tied in to any existing offer or deal, you could ask an independent broker such as John Charcol to take a fresh look at the whole market to find another more competitive deal. It could well be the case that if the land is not prohibitively expensive, a new, increased mortgage particularly with today’s excellent deals, actually costs less than you are currently paying. In the first instance though, you will need to try and strike up a dialogue with the land owner. Given the circumstances you present, this could be a tall order!

Q. My partner and I are looking to buy a repossessed property at auction as they are more affordable in the area we live in. My query is how do we obtain a mortgage on an auction property?

A. Buying property at auction is different to a conventional sale as the deal is binding at the fall of the hammer, where you are expected to hand over a 10% deposit. In a traditional deal, you are free to withdraw even if you have made an offer which has previously been accepted. If you fail to complete on an auction property with a 28 day period, you will lose your deposit.

I suggest that you contact several lenders well in advance of the auction date and ensure that you have satisfied their lending criteria and that they are willing to loan an appropriate sum of money “in principle.” Even if you do this, the offer will always be subject to a satisfactory survey by the lender so be prepared to have your intended auction property surveyed at your expense in advance of auction date. The risk with this is that even if you are able to borrow and the lender lend, you could still lose the property on auction day itself which would also mean you forfeit the cost of the lender’s valuation survey. Subject to the terms and conditions of the lender, you could also be liable for a hefty mortgage arrangement fee so check this aspect carefully with any potential lender. Good luck!

If you need further advice on obtaining a mortgage, take a look at our Mortgages & Finance centre on Primelocation.com.

Got a property question? Leave it in a comment and Barry will give you an answer.