This week’s first comment is in response to: Discussing sustainability gives mortgage brokers more credibility – HSBC UK video
Andy Wilson said: “I am not convinced that whether their mortgage adviser is supporting green initiatives or not is high on client’s agendas when seeking a mortgage.
“They want the best, lowest cost mortgage for their circumstances and a first class service from their adviser, not anything to do with their EPC rating. A warm fuzzy feeling from benefitting the environment will rarely win over hard, cold cash savings.”
He continued: “The current ‘green’ mortgages do little to benefit the clients anyway, and are rarely cheaper than other ‘ordinary’ mortgages. Promoting green credentials with inferior products will not raise your profile in a positive way.
“Improving an EPC rating, a flawed measure of a building’s energy efficiency anyway, should be an aim of all householders if they are to save money in the long term, and not a means to obtain a comparatively tiny saving on their mortgage.
“The problem is that in the UK the cost of significant energy improvements can take many years to recover, and the average stay in one property is often far less than the break-even point.”
Wilson added: “Until the green mortgage products are actually meaningful, I would suggest that advisers perhaps investigate some other contribution to the environment on every mortgage they do, such as paying for a planted sapling, or contributing to a wildflower project and make their clients aware of that, and add why a green mortgage might not be as good as alternatives.
“A few hundred trees planted every year could make a better impact than the few mortgages you will recommend with green benefits. But then how serious are we about it really?”
This week’s second comment is in response to: Brokers report ‘record breaking’ activity levels in January ‒ analysis
David Goose said: “The record ‘activity’ is probably us brokers have to do everything three times due to all the rate changes. We are all doing product transfers six months in advance and then redoing them every two months. Am I right?”
The last comment of the week was made on the article: Fees are out of hand in buy-to-let – JLM
Rob Denton said: “Agree that seven per cent equates to a big number, but I was hoping the thinking behind this with lenders is to allow borrowers to achieve a higher lending amount, which then gives landlords an opportunity to proceed with the deal.”
The comments here are from our readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions.
