Every UK mortgage lender and broker should have a home retrofit planning tool available for borrowers.
Why? Well, mortgage companies have four main incentives to increase the uptake of home retrofits amongst their borrower customers:
But studies have shown that there are currently two major barriers to homeowners retrofitting their homes: perceived upfront costs and simply knowing where to start.
Overcoming this means providing homeowners with accurate information on the best way to approach retrofitting their property in a cost effective and impactful way.
And the best way to achieve that is through providing a home retrofit planning tool alongside your green mortgage offering.
The good news is that there’s no need to build your own software because we’ve designed our Retrofit Explorer tool to overcome the key barriers to retrofit, and it’s available for lenders to white label for their customers.
Kamma’s Retrofit Explorer home retrofit planning tool has been specifically designed to overcome the main barriers that currently prevent homeowners from pursuing a home retrofit, which is why lenders like Octopus Real Estate trust the tool to support their green mortgage offering.
Many of the larger high street mortgage lenders already have their own home retrofit planning tool, like Co-operative Bank’s home improvement tool, Halifax’s home energy saving tool, and Lloyds Bank’s eco home tool.
However, these tools often give inaccurate recommendations because they rely on:
Retrofit Explorer is built using Kamma’s enhanced energy performance dataset and predictive modelling alongside EPC data to ensure that every home in the UK is covered to a high degree of accuracy without needing excessive inputs from the user – delivering a better user experience to increase completion rates.
Home retrofit planning tools typically show the user all possible retrofit improvements, using a ‘whole house retrofit’ approach and a default budget of £10,000+.
This may be optimal for carbon savings, but it isn’t realistic for most homeowners.
Our research found that 75% of homeowners could budget only £2,500 for retrofit improvements initially. A tool which shows them an extensive and expensive retrofit plan will only put homeowners off before they even get started.
Retrofit Explorer takes this best practice approach but puts cost effectiveness in the centre, showing the user the most impactful and affordable measures to make their home energy efficient, within a budget.
In extensive testing we found that the route to energy efficiency calculated by Retrofit Explorer reduced cost by 67% on average compared to other available tools.
The resulting plan is fully adjustable and editable, so the homeowner can add additional measures if they want to, but they always see the least overwhelming view of retrofit first.
Here, for example, we can see that installing a hot water cylinder jacket is actually very low cost and would have a much bigger impact on energy efficiency and EPC rating than a higher cost measure like improving double glazing:
Homeowners need to be able to easily understand the benefits of home retrofit for the upfront costs to seem worth it – energy bill savings, improved comfort, increased property valuation, and reduced carbon emissions.
Retrofit Explorer places the upfront costs alongside the benefits in terms that homeowners can easily digest, making the ROI of retrofit clear.
Alongside upfront costs, homeowner understanding of retrofit measures is also a key barrier to making energy efficiency improvements.
Retrofit Explorer subtly incorporates education and advice throughout the customer journey, so that the homeowner can feel confident in the steps needed for their home.
Home retrofit planning tools often end at the point of receiving a home retrofit plan – failing to support homeowners to actually take action and leaving them still unsure of how to get started with energy efficiency upgrades.
Retrofit Explorer enables homeowners to immediately take the next step towards energy efficiency improvements by finding local installers who can deliver the retrofit improvements that have been suggested to them – and they get a downloadable PDF of the plan that they can supply straight to the installer too.
🏠 Get started with Retrofit Explorer
With Retrofit Explorer lenders can increase the uptake of retrofit amongst borrowers, reducing risk and driving the green mortgage market. It’s easy to connect with any existing website or app in line with your company’s branding.
Book a demo ➡️
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Read moreWith the right home retrofit planning tool mortgage lenders can increase the uptake of retrofit amongst borrowers. Enter: Retrofit Explorer.
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