The Intermediary – July 2025 - Flipbook - Page 30
RESIDENTIAL
Opinion
Property risk detail
today, designed for
tomorrow
C
haracterising this
Government’s
approach to the
housing market has
to come down to
new-build. Plans to
deliver 1.5 million new homes by the
end of this Parliament may or may
not get fully over the line, but the
Chancellor’s recent Spending Review
provided some further clarity on
Government’s commitment to upping
the number of homes delivered to the
British people.
Rachel Reeves announced a £39bn
public fund, to be distributed to
housing associations via Homes
England, and a new National Housing
Bank to support public and private
housing developments.
That money is earmarked for
affordable homes, a contingent of the
UK’s housing market that has been
sorely neglected for decades. If the
money pledged is to make a difference
to the provision of all forms of housing
tenure, central Government will need
to put pressure on local authorities to
work closely with developers to get
new sites off the ground. Too oen,
developments are held up by inflexible
planning rules which bog progress
down for all the wrong reasons.
For lenders facing the prospect of
large numbers of new-build homes
coming to market over the next four
years, understanding both property
risk and resale implications is
absolutely paramount.
At e.surv, we’re seeing strong
evidence of this already, with our newbuild hub showing significant growth
in demand from lenders over the past
12 months.
This truly is a groundbreaking
portal, which allows lenders to track
their volume and concentration risk
across more than 16,000 new-build
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The Intermediary | July 2025
developments in real-time, enabling
them to navigate the rapidly changing
sector. Data and insight in the newbuild market have become essential in
understanding lenders’ site exposure
risks, as well as the growing issues
around build types, warranties,
management charges and incentives.
Labour’s changes to land
designations have brough different
challenges between brown, grey and
greenfield sites, including access,
historical use and contaminated land.
Particularly relevant to the
Spending Review statement is the
impact of affordable housing on values
across sites. The mix of properties and
build types is changing, too. There
is a noticeable increase in the use of
Modern Methods of Construction
(MMCs), an increased use of timber
frames, and the changing climate
impact on new sites is in some cases
increasing flood risk.
What this illustrates is just how fastmoving the environment is when it
comes to achieving accurate property
valuations. Resale isn’t just about
buyer appetite and funding supply.
Property condition, environmental
exposure, use, tenure, fabric,
regulatory risk, emerging policy or
legislative risks, land use and legal
title history, or lack thereof – these
are just some of the other increasingly
complex variables that lenders need
to have a good grasp of if they are to
fully fathom the risk that sits on their
back books.
For many in lenders’ risk
departments, there is an
understanding of how wide-ranging
the scope of property risk now is.
Yet, there are also those struggling to
create a structure that allows them
visibility of it.
Data in this world is absolutely
vital, and so is its digital accessibility
STEVE GOODALL
is managing director at e.surv
and integrity. But it cannot paint a
full picture of risk. Anyone can follow
paint-by-numbers, but without a view
of what it is you’re actually painting,
it’s always going to be a snapshot only.
A two-dimensional representation.
This might have satisfied in a
slower-moving world, with fewer
homes and less consumer protection
regulation and prudential oversight.
Today’s market – and importantly,
also tomorrow’s – needs a much more
comprehensive approach to building
this picture.
Data is the groundwork, triage to
automated valuations and desktops
narrows the scope of potential
valuation risk. Physical inspections
and long-held experience must keep
their place too – understanding and
seeing the thing you’re painting allows
you the opportunity to assess what the
numbers cannot see or foresee.
In this market, lenders need the
whole lot, and it’s in nobody’s interest
to be trying to patch such complex
sources of data together without
judgement. In a world that is intent
on commoditising everything,
there’s a danger of losing the details
that maer. Making sense of all this
information is the glue that sticks it all
together. Lenders need speed, accuracy
and efficiency to manage cost and
deliver against customer expectations
responsibly and compliantly.
But they also need an independent
second line of defence to identify
issues before they become a problem
later on. This is what our dedicated
team offers. Managing property
risk in today’s world is a balance –
delivering the detail today with an
approach designed for tomorrow. ●
