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THFC will be in Edinburgh on Wednesday 20 May to give a presentation on European Funding opportunities for Scottish Associations. This is the outcome from a recent visit to members of the Scottish Government Housing Team and The Scottish Housing Regulator in Glasgow to discuss opportunities for THFC to lend European Investment Bank (EIB) urban regeneration funding to Scottish Associations.
Belfast has seen major upheaval over the last few decades both for good and for bad reasons. On the downside, there has been industrial decline. In their heyday the dockyards employed a large proportion of the workforce and completed high profile projects such as the ill fated Titanic. Sampson and Goliath the two huge crane gantries still loom large on the horizon of the city as listed monuments, reminding all who pass by of an illustrious past.
Continue reading The Social Housing Market and EIB funding in Northern Ireland
How do the credit crunch and the downturn in the real economy affect smaller associations? Can we survive? How are we likely to be affected? How are our tenants and staff affected? Are there any positives we can take out of this situation?
Continue reading Surviving the credit lock-down as a smaller housing association
by Sarah Hayes
From what we see as lawyers from the loan transactions going through the credit crunch is hitting the RSL loans market quite severely and it seems to be a time of great change for RSL loan expectations. However some RSLs don’t yet seem aware of how much disruption or change there actually is.
Continue reading Housing Associations and Bank Credit – Nelson or Ostriches?
by Piers Williamson
BBC Radio 4’s PM and 6 o’clock news on Monday 5 May carried a story on the potential shortage of committed funding for HAs to deliver the affordable housing programme. Tom Dacey, CEO of Southern Housing Group, was interviewed. He said that a shortage of lenders is making it hard for housing associations to plan developments. He said:
by Piers Williamson
Two volume house-builders, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon delivered defensive statements at their recent AGMs. Persimmon in their 24 April statement commented “over the last three weeks the unprecedented tightening in the mortgage market has caused a further deterioration of the housing market leading to lower sales volumes and increased cancellation rates”. They went on to say that “against the current backdrop we have postponed the commencement of scheduled new sites until the mortgage market improves”. Their share price dropped 6% on the news.
by Robert Robinson
Various types of securitisations developed over the past decade to meet an increasingly sophisticated range of investor demand, these also included UK social housing backed transactions (although there has been limited recent new issuance in the face of cheap bank lending). Securitisations in essence can spread financial risk and make the financial system work more efficiently. They can reduce the risk of default through the use of special purpose vehicles, debt tranching, and dedicated liquidity or cash reserves, and furthermore they can separate the risk of corporate bankruptcy and defaults between different classes of debt.
Continue reading Back to the future – Should housing associations be considering securitisation?
by Piers Williamson
If you are a working parent, I suspect you’re familiar with the situation of opening the front door in the evening and before you’ve taken a step over the threshold, the requests come flooding in…
by Wendy Wilks
About turn
What a disappointment it is to see that the new General Consent 2008 issued by The Housing Corporation on Friday 1 February removes all the drafting inserted in the June 2007 consultation.
Continue reading Housing Corporation About Turn on s.9 Consents
by Piers Williamson
Patrick Butler in his Guardian blog, suggests that Ujima may represent the Social Housing sector’s own credit crunch.
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