NatWest announces £500 million lending for social rent

NatWest has launched up to £500 million of lending for the delivery of social rent housing across the UK.

The bank, which has ringfenced the funding, has made the loans available to eligible housing associations who are existing NatWest customers. The loans will carry discounted interest margins with no arrangement fee.

NatWest said it intended to lend £7.5 billion to the social housing sector by the end of 2026. As part of this ambition, alongside the funding commitment to build new social homes it has a partnership with the National Wealth Fund to loan up to £500 million to retrofit existing social homes. This is underpinned by a guarantee by the National Wealth Fund.

The bank noted that the number of social homes across the UK had dropped “over the years” due to housing associations’ restricted financial capacity. Providers had therefore pivoted towards alternative housing tenures, but in England social rent only typically generated rents of around 50% of market rates compared to affordable rent, yielding rents of up to 80% of market rates.

NatWest said it hoped that discounted loans for the building of social rent homes would aid their construction “and enable housing associations …