The BSA and a new lending landscape

As part of the Behavioural Economics Forum's series on innovation in the mortgage industry, we invited the Head of Mortgage Policy at the Building Societies Association, Paul Broadhead to comment on progress in supporting both self-build and modern methods of construction (MMC). Paul joined a panel with the Chief Risk Officer of the Cambridge Building Society, Victoria Stubbs, and Professor Nick Whitehouse of Oxford Brookes University representing Buildoffsite. You can watch Paul summarise this in the video below and define MMC above. Paul commented:

'We have been calling for an expansion in housing supply for some time, as governments have consistently under-achieved on housing delivery. We have a growing and ageing population, high immigration, and a reduction in the size of occupier families. The construction sector has its own challenges. With this background we decided to commission a report in 2016 to look at the opportunities that modern methods of construction could bring to help solve the housing crisis.

'How can we bring additionality into the housing market? There is an almost perfect opportunity now with a government that is committed to accelerated house building and new ways of construction, and lots of private investment from the likes of Laing O’Rourke and L&G who are now equipped to produce these types of (MMC) homes.

'We asked ourselves how can we can help and how can we ensure that these (MMC) properties are mortgage-able? Our sector has always been involved in the self-build sector, where we see much more use of MMC – which is more energy efficient and has less environmental impact on-site.'

Please watch Paul speaking in the video clip below summarising the progress in lending on properties constructed with modern methods of construction: