table funding
Table funding is when a mortgage lender puts up the cash to close a house purchase and then sells that loan to another lender almost immediately after.
In plain English
"So who exactly is lending me this money, the bank at the table or the one who owns my loan now?" Adaeze asked her solicitor, staring at a letter from a company she had never heard of, three weeks after closing on her flat in Lekki.
"Both, in a way," the solicitor said. "The one who sat with you at the table gave you the cash on the day. But they had already arranged, before you even signed, to hand your loan over to someone else almost immediately."
That is table funding in a nutshell. A lender shows up at closing, funds the loan with money that is often not even fully theirs, and within days or hours sells the loan to another financial institution that intended to buy it all along. The homebuyer barely notices, because the paperwork, the keys, and the handshake still happen at the same table, on the same day.
It matters because it is a calm piece of machinery behind how many mortgages actually work, especially in places like the United Kingdom where smaller lenders originate loans they never plan to hold, then pass them along to bigger banks or investors who want the steady income. A Nigerian in London buying her first terraced house might sign with a small building society, unaware that her loan gets sold off before her first statement even arrives.
For Nigerians sending money home to help family buy land or a flat in Abuja, this matters less directly, since much of that market still runs on cash and personal negotiation. But if you ever deal with a mortgage broker who works with multiple funding partners, table funding explains why the name on your first letter is not always the name you will be paying for the next twenty years.
Chuka gets a ₦38,000,000 mortgage from a small lender in Ikeja to buy his house. Two days after closing, that lender sells the loan to a larger bank, which now owns the debt and collects Chuka's monthly repayments going forward.
Questions people ask
Does table funding cost the borrower more money?
Not directly. The fees and interest rate are agreed before closing, so the sale of the loan afterwards does not change what you owe, only who you eventually pay.
How is table funding different from a normal loan sale?
A normal sale happens after the lender has held the loan for a while. Table funding is arranged before closing even happens, so the sale is almost instant, sometimes on the very same day.
Will I be told if my mortgage is table funded?
You should be, since lenders are generally required to disclose who is actually funding the loan, but many borrowers only notice when a new company sends the first repayment letter.
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