As the U.K. battles an ever-increasing housing crisis, more and more people are looking to manufactured and modular housing as a solution.

Ashley Ilsen, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Lending at development finance lender Regentsmead, tells MHProNews that supply chains, in the wake of the recent Brexit vote, have presented a unique opportunity.

“Supply chains seem to have slowed since the Brexit vote and this is severely hampering the rate that we are able to build houses,” said Ilsen.

“Cost of building materials is predicted to rise dramatically over the next few years, following our rather painful exit from the EU. Worryingly, this seems to be widely ignored by the government, which I can’t understand given that housing is such a prominent topic these days.”

Ilsen believes he knows the solution.

“Modular housing could well be the answer here. We have come a long way from some of the pre-fabricated solutions that we saw during the 1990s. With a huff and a puff it would be touch and go whether these would stay standing, and after a few winters you were lucky if the size of your house wasn’t very different to when you first moved in,” said Ilsen.

“Today we are of course in a very different age where we now have a plethora of various modular housing products. Each one I see seems to be even more superior to the last. The house is constructed in a third of the time as a brick and block structure. Usually, the house arrives on site in sections and is pieced together almost like a giant puzzle, something that has caused headaches for lenders that haven’t necessarily comprehended how to fund such buildings.”

Ilsen feels strongly that as modular housing solutions become more mainstream in the U.K., it’s critical that lenders better understand them.

“There may well be a different type of warranty required for a modular house; funds will need to be released in a different structure and when problems occur on site a lender should have the expertise to deal with it,” said Ilsen.

“Modular builds will also carry a different site value as they are constructed, which means no more hiding behind the ‘bricks and mortar’ phraseology that we hear so often. There are also numerous risks involved in modular construction that a good development lender will have a deep understanding of.”

The Daily Business News has covered the U.K. housing crisis, and potential solutions closely, including supermarket giant Tesco adding modular units on top of their store locations and an “urban bungalow” home created by Willerby Innovations. That story is linked here. ##

(Image credits are as shown above.)

Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews.