"Lower energy homes will have lower other ‘unavoidable’ costs are can therefore afford to repay higher mortgage repayment amounts without increasing their overall outgoings."
LENDERS involves mortgage lenders, building industry experts, green energy groups and sustainability bodies. It is currently looking at ways to move away from current estimates of energy costs in the mortgage lending process and "aid responsible borrowing" by more accurately estimating costs as part of the mortgage application process.
It is currently gathering data in a bid to create more accurate information on energy costs and affordability that feeds into the mortgage lending process.
It believe this data could allow lenders to acknowledge that smaller fuel costs could allow more to be borrowed on the mortgage, encourage buyers towards more efficient buildings and potentially reflect the added value of such properties.
In a statement, LENDERS said: "This helps support responsible lending, it also means due to lower fuel bills, lower energy homes will have lower other ‘unavoidable’ costs are can therefore afford to repay higher mortgage repayment amounts without increasing their overall outgoings. This, in turn, leads to the capacity to deliver high capital lending amounts.
"The larger mortgages available for lower energy homes are hoped to stimulate an awareness in consumers of the benefits of buying a greener home and, longer term, this increase in demand should help drive (via values and speed of sales) the housing market and house builders to provide more energy efficient homes and increase the value of such homes.
"It may also help encourage homeowners to invest in improving energy efficiency building solutions by enabling the mortgage market to more accurately reflect fuel costs in lending offers. This could be useful for re-mortgages to undertake energy refurbishment projects, where the realised savings in fuel costs enable the additional mortgage repayments."
