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Daily Mail - green mortgages

ended 20. October 2021

A journalist at the Daily Mail is seeking reaction/commentary from mortgage experts about the Government’s green mortgages plan. He's specifically interested in what it will mean for owners of older homes that might not be suitable for energy efficient work. How could it impact the prices of older homes? What would be the wider implications for the market as a whole? Tight deadline so just a few sentences will do!

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Joshua Gerstler
Chartered Financial Planner at The Orchard Practice
"I do not want to see the elderly or those own lower incomes unable to get a mortgage because they cannot afford the cost of improving the energy efficiency of their home."
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Scott Taylor-Barr
Principal Adviser at Barnsdale Financial Management
"UK homes are one of the major contributors to the country's overall carbon emissions, so it makes perfect sense to tackle that. We have already seen moves to improve the energy efficiency of new build homes and properties being offered to rent. As attention now moves to the older housing stock people own, there are likely to be more issues that arise, especially when we get to property built pre-1900 and especially those that are listed, or are in a conservation area. "Many of these properties would be described by estate agents as "character homes" and so have to be upgraded considerately to maintain that charm. The problem this brings is cost. For example, the cost of off-the-shelf triple glazing for a modern home is going to be a lot less than the bespoke units needed for an 1830's cottage with its non-standard size windows. "I guess the question is: how green does the Government want houses to get and how much are they prepared to help homeowners acheive that goal?"
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Imran Hussain
Director at Harmony Financial Services
"It's a crazy idea. The focus should be on building more affordable homes as this will simply hurt those with the least amount of money trying to get onto the property ladder or those in older properties unless massive grants are issued to help those improve those properties, and if they can't be improved, it will only add to the housing supply problem by creating mortgage prisoners overnight."
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Editor
Aaron Strutt
Product and Communications Director at Trinity Financial
If you have an old house that is not energy efficient it may well be harder to sell in the future, especially if buyers are not prepared to spend the money to bring it up to date. Lenders are already under pressure to provide more Green mortgage products and they are telling us this market will be huge. Banks and building societies need to act because the government is applying pressure and pushing them to help combat climate change.