NON-CONVENTIONAL MATERIALS: How mortgageable are they?

One of the pleasures of designing your own home is the freedom it affords to create a uniquely interesting and stylish property. By specifying quality materials, self-builders can stamp their individual mark on the design, setting it apart from the standardised boxes favoured by mainstream developers.

Unlike most other countries, new housing in the UK is overwhelmingly developed by corporate housebuilding PLCs who are routinely criticised for producing unimaginative homes based on standardised templates with little regard for geographical location.

The list of materials deployed in most new housing developments reads like a repetitive riff on a well-worn theme. Typically it comprises concrete blocks, standardised facing bricks and concrete roof tiles. Occasionally this meagre menu is embellished with prefabricated timber frame structures instead of blockwork cavity wall inner leafs, and sometimes exteriors are perked up with a dash of render, timber cladding or reconstituted stone.

The chief reason for this bland monoculture is because the corporate creative palette is constrained by the primacy of the profit margin. There is, however, another reason why developers stick to this