With Beth Fisher, publishing director at Medianett Publishing, asking the questions and Maeve Ward, commercial director at Mercantile Trust, joining her at the head of the table, they invited the panel to discuss the cost of living crisis, trends and their effect on demand in the bridging market, and available products for investors to upgrade their EPC bands. Panellists included Steve Swyny, commercial director at Envelop Finance; Sam Cantle, technical manager at Stroma Certification; and Helen Scorer, operations director at Pure Panel Management.

The conversation kicked off with the impact the current situation is having on landlord and property investors, with Maeve on hand to set the scene.

“Brokers have done quite a good job so far in terms of educating,” she said, certainly when it comes to informing property investors of what to expect further down the line and the finance options in order to make the required upgrades. However, with things still at the proposal stage, the biggest hurdle lies with people wondering whether they should act now or later.

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“You could wait,” Maeve added, “but if they leave it until the very last minute, they potentially risk being hit with a fine because they’ve not been able to upgrade the property in time, and perhaps haven’t got the equity they thought they had within their property portfolio to enable them to do it, or they’ve used the cash set aside for something else. At the moment, there is a lot of unknown.” 

“There is a fair degree of uncertainty,” Steve echoed, outlining that being proactive was the best foot forward. “Our ARs are seeing an opportunity for different types of funding to raise the capital now while it’s still available. Interest rates and calculations for ICRs have risen quite dramatically, so the guys that had planned for this earlier on in the year are now slightly ahead of the game because they’ve locked into fixed rates which may not be available now.”

With energy-efficiency retrofits cited as “significantly off-track” in a 2022 report to parliament from the Climate Change Committee, is it doable for property investors to ensure their properties meet the new standards within the timeframes specified?

“I think the longer indecision goes on, the more difficult it gets,” Sam admitted. With reference to the proposal in the consultation to raise the cost cap to £10,000 per property — a significant jump from the current cap of £3,500 — he said there should be more investment going into each individual property, increasing its chances of achieving the rating they want. Regardless, the government predicts that 90% of D-rated and only 60% of E-rated properties would get to C or above. “We’re not too sure what it means for F- and G-rated properties — and we know there are a lot of them.”

Helen accepted the outcome isn’t easy to forecast, noting that landlords may very well wait another couple of years to make such amendments. However, she claimed that improvements such as “cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and things like that” the final bill could be less than £3,500. “It could be doable, but are landlords going to hold off and wait until this spend cap is raised? It’s unpredictable what’s going to happen.”

What impact has the cost of living crisis had on property investors and their engagement with the work required? Do the panellists think enough detailed information is available, or is there more that can be done in the way of educating people? Find this out and more by watching the full video below.