Small business owners pointed out that they would be ‘effectively hit in the pocket twice with contributions both as an employer and employee’ following Boris Johnson’s announcement today.

Small business bosses blast Boris over £12bn tax raid

Banks and building societies fight for customers as house prices rise in frenzied market

HSBC offers sub-1% mortgage as interest rate war intensifies

What are the options available to older homeowners who need to extend their mortgage term beyond retirement?

How to get a mortgage beyond your retirement

The suspension of the sales tax on properties up to £500,000 is available for transactions which complete by Wednesday 30 June

Buyers urged to get offers in, with two months to go until end of stamp duty holiday

MORTGAGE and property demand is set to continue upward over the coming months as new data shows the Government’s efforts are continuing to have an impact. Today, Halifax released its latest House Price Index which highlighted how buyers are responding to changing economics.

Rishi Sunak ‘should be applauded’ as his actions may lead to better mortgage deals - how?

Values have still risen 5.7pc in the past 12 months

House prices dip in March but slowdown only temporary

Energy minister Anne-Marie Trevalyan has announced £11 million in government funding for the latest round of the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund (EEF). The hope is that this will help talented energy entrepreneurs turn their ideas into real products and services. But Matthew Fleming-Duffy, director of Che…

Fleming-Duffy calls for real action as government announces £11 million fund for green entrepreneurs | The Leaders Council of Great Britain & Northern Ireland

INTEREST rates are currently low, with this month marking a year since the Bank of England Base Rate was slashed to a record low of 0.1 percent. What would negative interest rates mean for mortgage borrowers? Express.co.uk put this question to an expert on the topic.

Negative interest rates ‘definitely a possibility’ - you may want to check mortgage terms

Saffron Building Society has launched a green mortgage and is one of the few lenders who offer this type of home loan.

Saffron joins the few lenders offering green mortgages

Almost five million Britons live or work outside the UK and many of them don’t want to give up property ownership in their homeland, but getting a mortgage has got much harder.

How to get a buy-to-let mortgage if you are a UK expat

New mortgage approvals surged to 84,700 last month, as German harmonised inflation drops to -0.4%

UK mortgage approvals hit 13-year high; German inflation falls below zero - as it happened

A future in which tech giants like Amazon and Google compete with brokers no longer seems like science fiction, says Guy Anker ‘Alexa, can you get me a mortgage?’ OK, so Amazon’s home assistant cannot deliver a home loan, but some experts suggest there may come a day when it will compete with broker…

Cover Feature: Is an Amazon mortgage on the horizon? | Mortgage Strategy

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Halifax found that house prices had increased by 1.1% between February and March 2021 and are now 6.5% higher than in March 2020.

Industry reacts to Halifax House Price Index | Mortgage Introducer

INTEREST rates are currently low, with this month marking a year since the Bank of England Base Rate was slashed to a record low of 0.1 percent. What would negative interest rates mean for mortgage borrowers?

Green Mortgages are still failing to capture the public's attention, but this can be resolved fairly simply by the Government without the need for complicated and time-limited grants.
<blockquote>I am reminded of Greta Thunberg’s comment “You must take action. You must do the impossible. Because giving up is never an option.” Now indeed is the time for action. Green Mortgages really can help the UK meet it's net zero ambitions.</blockquote>
With an estimated 17 million homes having an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating below Band C, the UK has a lot of work to do in retrofitting these properties with energy efficient improvements to meet its ambitious net zero targets by 2050. The enormity of this task cannot be understated. England has some of the oldest housing stock in the world, with 21% of dwellings built before 1919 and 16% built between 1919 and 1945 https://www.statista.com/statistics/292252/age-of-housing-dwellings-in-england-uk-by-tenuree/ - and older properties tend to be colder and often more challenging (and expensive) to improve.
However, if Green Mortgages – where the cost of the borrowing is linked to the energy performance of the property – become more widely available, huge numbers of homeowners would be encouraged to take positive action in making their homes more energy efficient.
To give credit where it’s due, the UK government has made attempts at helping the mortgage market create new products - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/green-home-finance-innovation-fund- competition and https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-home-energy-performance-through-lenders - and lenders will soon be required to publish EPC data on the properties that they have provided mortgages for.
But, as it stands, green mortgage product availability is terribly poor. Nat West and Barclays offer very low impact incentives for purchasing a property which already has a good EPC rating. Nationwide Building Society offers home improvement loans to their existing customers at competitive rates. Other, smaller lenders such as Saffron Building Society and Kensington have been dipping in-and-out of providing solutions that, for some consumers, are fairly well-priced. In terms of product development, the shining light is Ecology Building Society - https://www.ecology.co.uk/hub/new-renovation-mortgage/.
So, where do we go from here? Considering the global economy is going through a period of creative destruction, now is the time to be bold. The former Governor of the Bank of England has consistently stated that green finance should be firmly on the agenda - https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/mark-carney-investing-net-zero-climate-solutions-creates- value-and-rewards - and that we ignore climate change risks at our peril.
Whilst most mortgage lenders will now for the EPC rating of a property, they do not ask how a property value could be affected in the future if energy efficiency measures are not undertaken. RICS are fully supportive of the development of green mortgages - https://www.rics.org/globalassets/rics-website/media/news/news--opinion/retrofitting-to- decarbonise-the-uk-existing-housing-stock-v2.pdf - so could be asked, at the point of valuation, how the future value and saleability of the property could be affected if works are (or are not) completed.
The big six high street lenders (Lloyds, Nationwide, RBS, Santander, Barclays &amp; HSBC) continue to dominate the mortgage market in the UK and represent around 70% of all new lending. They all need to be encouraged to develop solutions that really help consumers in their quest for home energy efficiency and provide sustainable finance. However the largest barrier to the development of mass-market availability of competitively priced green mortgages is that lenders are being asked to reduce their profit margins to create products, at a time in which many will feel they are already suffering sustained pressure from the economic impact of the pandemic, mortgage payment holidays and broad market competition.
There is a solution. Lenders have capital requirements for mortgages, and these requirements are lower for lower risk loans - https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prudential-regulation/publication/2020/internal-ratings-based-uk-mortgage-risk-weights-managing-deficiencies-in-model-risk-capture Green mortgages are generally heralded as lower risk loans-https://www.fitchratings.com/research/structured-finance/covered-bonds/data-disclosure-are-key- for-green-mortgage-analysis-30-11-2020 - so the PRA could reduce the lender’s capital requirements for this type of product. This in turn would reduce the costs associated with providing a green mortgage and could be passed on to the consumer in the form of discounts and incentives.
A lot of work will need to be undertaken and, for many, this may seem to be too large a task. How do you start defining what a green mortgage is? Won’t we be in danger of creating new mortgage prisoners, if people in older, drafty, damp homes cannot access cheap finance? With all this in mind, I am reminded of Greta Thunberg’s comment “You must take action. You must do the impossible. Because giving up is never an option.” Now indeed is the time for action.

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