Home or Away? Homebuyers increasingly look overseas

The mortgage market review in the UK has displayed how it is getting increasingly harder to obtain a mortgage in Britain. It seems that many investors are now turning their gaze a little further afield in order to get a little more bang for their buck. Joe Bradbury of Building Specifier investigates:

Research undertaken by GoCompare.com indicates that more than 20% of those attempting to get on the UK housing ladder would consider leaving Britain in order to own a home of their own. Whilst this doesn’t mean that those thinking of an overseas mortgage will actually pursue one, it is a clear indication that there appears to be a shifting attitude within the UK regarding the possibility of owning property abroad.

So is this due to Great Britain becoming a growing generation of nomads, or is there something else going on?

In comparison, Santander mortgages conducted a similar survey of their own. Their compiled data suggested that 1.1 million would consider leaving the UK in pursuit of a place to call home. A further 10% said they would happily move jobs or relocate elsewhere in Great Britain to help them purchase their first house. Sadly, the research also revealed that 7.5 million (49%) of non-homeowners don’t ever expect to own a home. This shows the severity of the issues the UK is currently experiencing with house prices and mortgage availability. Needless to say, with such an attitude becoming increasingly prevalent in the country, it can only be expected that people are looking for new, lucrative directions in which to channel their hard-earned cash.

In the past, the majority of people who chose to buy a home overseas did so using savings they had accumulated over the years, or with equity released from their UK residence. However, with UK house prices currently in disarray and the cost of holidays abroad steadily soaring, many are beginning to consider a home abroad as a permanent solution to both problems. This has led to foreign lenders have becoming more inclined to work with prospective UK buyers, and gradually more and more people are borrowing to finance homes abroad.

Another contributing factor that could potentially be attracting many Brits to consider such a big move is the appealing interest rates around the Eurozone. Foreign lenders are often more inclined to work closely with investors, paying attention to their individual needs. For example, if your intention is to buy a property in a popular holiday location and rent it out, the income you make from renting can be offset against the loan for tax purposes. Also, some countries have extremely high wealth charges but these tend to only be payable on equity. Borrowing rather than buying outright could prove to be more financially beneficial, meaning that investors can avoid this pricey tax.

Although Europe seems to get a lot of attention from prospective emigrants, the research also suggests that people are open to the possibility of looking much, much further afield – outside of the EU. To be specific, 31% showed interest in America, 29% in Australia and 20% in New Zealand. A property in any one of these countries need not be solely a personal home, but could provide a tidy income through letting and would likely appreciate in the long term.

Whatever the reasoning and regardless of how many choose to leave Britain in order to improve their opportunities, both investigations suggest a sea change in the UK property market. It seems homebuyers are increasingly feeling like they are left with two choices, do they ride the tide or risk being left out to dry as the currents shift within the sector.

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Joe Bradbury explores the true potential of wood

As the built environment moves towards becoming eco-friendly, buildingspecifier Editor Joe Bradbury posits the question – are we not seeing the wood for the trees in the quest for a viable green alternative?

The construction industry accounts for almost 7% of the economy in the UK and we hold a 10% share of total employment. However, with great size comes great responsibility and unfortunately – a very big carbon footprint. 47% of greenhouse gas emissions are generated from buildings and 10% of CO2 emissions come from construction materials. Shockingly, 20% of the materials used on the average building site end up in a skip. According to a 2011 report, in 2010 up to 4.3 million tonnes of timber waste was generated.

However, it isn’t all doom and gloom and reckless capitalism, as the construction industry has come on leaps and bounds over the past 20 years or so in a bid to make the industry a cleaner, greener entity. One area where vast improvements have been made is in the recycling and usage of wood in buildings. In 1992, less than 2% of all waste wood was recycled; 10 years later approximately 60% (2.8 million tonnes) of all wood waste generated in the UK was recycled.

The energy industry is also beginning to see the potential of wood for cleaning up its act. Because trees absorb carbon dioxide whilst they grow, burning wood for energy is considered ‘carbon neutral.’ In 2010 around 0.55 million tonnes of wood was used in energy generation. Some coal-fired power stations have had some of their boilers converted to accept wood and they burn more than 100,000 tonnes of recycled woodchip a year.

Remarkably, the future of wood in construction of buildings has reached soaring new heights recently as innovations in engineered timber could spell the beginning of a new era of eco-friendly wooden skyscraper design.

Despite wood in its raw form not being able to compete with the steel-frame design used in skyscrapers globally, a new type of super-plywood has been created that just might give steel a run for its money.

By gluing layers of low-grade softwood together to create timber panels, today’s “engineered timber” resembles Ikea flat-packed furniture rather than traditional sawn lumber and removes the height limits usually imposed on buildings with timber frames. Free from these constraints, ambitious architects are exploring the possibility of a next generation of “plyscrapers.”

Architect Michael Green has drawn up plans for a 30-storey, naturally grown tower for downtown Vancouver, which if built would become the world’s highest wooden building – an accolade currently awarded to London’s Stadthaus at nine storeys and the 10-storey Forte Building in Melbourne.

With China next on the list of countries suspected to implement timber skyscrapers into their cityscapes, it is definitely possible that we could one day be working in a building that began life as a seed.

However, there is still deep mistrust of timber builds en masse, with many considering them a tinderbox responsible for causing ravaging city fires such as the great fire of London, San Francisco and Chicago, to name a few examples.  Whilst historically fires have razed great cities to the ground, today’s engineered timber develops a protective charring layer that maintains structural integrity and burns very predictably. This means that it would actually be more structurally sound than steel, which warps drastically under intense heat.

NASA satellite photos of our planet help biologists calculate the number of trees there are on Earth. Whilst impossible to settle on a specific number, many professors agree that there are roughly 61 trees per person worldwide. It requires 22 trees to produce the amount of oxygen consumed by one person, with an acre of trees producing enough oxygen for 18 people. The forest loss is 49,421 acres per day, equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris – an alarming statistic when you consider the expanding population.

Obviously trees alone aren’t the answer to the construction industry’s environmental issues, however, through responsible usage and with the utmost respect it could help us edge further towards that cleaner, greener future we all need.

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Dangers of modern slavery in construction

Sadly and unbeknownst to many people, slavery did not end with abolition in the 19th century. It is estimated that there are 27 million slaves in the world today, many of these work in the global construction industry. According to the charitable organisation ‘Free the Slaves’, these desperate individuals come with an average price tag on their head of £67.51 each – How much is your life worth?

A new report by LexisNexis BIS, called Hidden in Plain Site – Modern Slavery in the Construction Industry, has analysed articles from more than 6,000 licensed news sources in more than 100 countries in Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, Africa and Asia between January 2015 and May 2016.

It shows that throughout the global construction industry and its material supply chains, forced labour and other exploitation that constitutes modern slavery are common, concealed and subject to inadequate prevention, policing and prosecution.

It concludes that governments, businesses and the media all have a role to play in combating modern slavery.

The report follows a pledge by UK Prime Minister Theresa May in July to spend £33 million on global initiatives to tackle modern slavery. She described it as “the great human rights issue of our time.”

Mark Dunn, Director at LexisNexis Business Insights Solutions, notes “Our report shows that there is a strong risk of forced labour taking place in the construction industry and its supply chains. Given that the construction industry employs an estimated 7% of the global workforce, this means countless thousands of workers are leading lives of misery and injustice.

“Forced labour needs to move up the global agenda. A wide range of stakeholders – international bodies, governments and the public sector, industry organisations, construction companies, investors, the media and civil society – have roles to play in preventing and avoiding collusion in worker exploitation in the construction industry. LexisNexis BIS is committed to actively working to advance the rule of law, through its day-to-day business, products and services, and its actions.”

Kevin Hyland OBE, UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, said “I am pleased to see numerous sectors waking up to the crime of Modern Slavery, and the Lexis Nexis BIS report excellently educates those in the construction industry on this evil crime.

“Businesses, government and civil society have a crucial role in combatting modern slavery, and this report highlights just that. Through responsible media reporting, businesses especially are encouraged to be open about supply chains, and ultimately protect those most at risk of exploitation.

“Those in construction are especially vulnerable to this crime; with high demand for low wage labour, we must therefore strive to see a thriving construction industry that values ethical recruitment and fair employment if we ever hope to end this evil trade in human beings.’

The report is based on desk research, expert insights and analysis of wide-ranging media coverage. It defines the scope and many aspects of the problem, and breaks it down according to region (Europe, Middle East, North and South America, Africa, Asia) and the procurement of specific building materials. Relevant international regulation and standards frameworks, along with individual countries’ legislative measures (or lack of them), are examined.

Case studies in the report include allegations of forced labour being used to build World Cup 2022 stadiums in Qatar, a marine construction project in the USA, and Brazilian workers at an industrial plant in Angola.

In particular, the report relates to compliance with the recently introduced UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. The UK Home Office estimated in 2014 that there were 10,000–13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK.

More than 20 million people are in forced labour globally, the International Labour Organization estimated in 2012. The Walk Free Foundation’s 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that there are 45.8 million people in modern slavery across the world. In a 2015 report by the European Union, construction ranked second on the list of economic sectors in the EU most prone to labour exploitation. Of the 21 countries that participated in the research, nine put construction at the top of their list.

The fact of the matter is that once working on a building site under a hard hat and hi-vis clothing, a victim becomes perfectly camouflaged and unnoticed by foremen, building specifiers and professionals within the industry. This means that well before shovels hit the ground, responsible checks must be carried out to ensure we are not inadvertently supporting an evil, inhumane trade. Despite the good work carried out by various charitable organizations and governments, the eradication of slavery is impossible without the assistance of big businesses and entire industries.

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