Mortgage market turmoil presents an opportunity for lenders
The UK’s mortgage market continues to face significant stress as households struggle to meet the surging cost of home loans. In the last few months, many mortgage products have been pulled, lenders have backed out of agreed deals, and concern and uncertainty among homeowners have skyrocketed.
While the situation has been and continues to be extremely challenging, it also presents forward-thinking lenders with an opportunity to find creative solutions to help homeowners offset some costs.
One such solution are green mortgages, which are designed to offer borrowers preferential terms – lower interest rates, increased loan amounts, or cash incentives – to buy or retrofit properties.
An untapped opportunity
Amid the current cost of living crisis, it is understandable that homeowners may be wary of making large investments in energy-saving measures with little understanding of the benefits. However, solutions such as green mortgages provide lenders with an opportunity to raise awareness, to educate homeowners on the options available to them, and to incentivise them to take actionable steps towards improving the energy efficiency of their homes.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that many homeowners don’t know precisely what needs to be done to their properties, exactly how much it will cost and where to source the tradespeople to complete the works.
To help facilitate the process, Heero Technologies has developed an App that enables lenders to reach out to customers with a powerful tool that streamlines and guides homeowners through the entire retrofit journey.
As the leading independent energy platform and powered by the most sophisticated software engine for housing in the UK, the Heero App – which is available to lenders as a white label solution, meaning that lenders can rebrand it as their own – offers the ideal solution for lenders looking to differentiate themselves by offering financial products that are both personalised and specifically targeted at home energy improvements.
For example, lenders can use the platform to present homeowners with targeted finance offers, to highlight specific measures based on their ability to improve the thermal efficiency of the property and to generate energy/heat from renewable sources, as well as to show the cost of installation and energy bills savings associated with the suggested measures. Furthermore, they can recommend installers based on customer feedback, estimated cost of work, and proximity to the householder.
Addressing ESG
With a greater focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) measures than ever before and as the need to quantify carbon emissions and show verifiable reductions continues to grow, the technology provides lenders with a validation tool that ensures they are meeting ESG objectives. It measures the amount of carbon saved, specifically lifetime carbon savings, which is valuable as besides regulatory compliance, customers are increasingly choosing service providers based on their ESG credentials.
How homeowners benefit
Although Heero is not a direct-to-consumer app, the benefits of the technology to homeowners are clear – it offers personalised energy recommendations with up to 95% accuracy whilst addressing challenges such as the disruption caused by invasive energy efficiency measures and confusion over financing and government funding.
Additionally, it identifies the most effective improvements, streamlines the user experience, and ultimately equips homeowners with the knowledge and tools to make decisions that will help them save money on energy bills, that will have a positive impact on the environment, and that will increase the value of their homes.
By making use of the Heero App, lenders can offer homeowners a seamless customer journey from insight to installation, removing complexity and providing trusted support. In turn, they benefit from an improved value proposition, lead generation, and the opportunity to capture new growth opportunities.