Exploring loan finance guarantees to support new affordable housing in Scotland

<p>One potential way to support the development of new affordable housing in Scotland, either in times of short-term credit famine, or longer term, would be to develop a loan guarantee scheme for the social housing sector. In principle, this could secure lower loan costs and make available public resources go further.</p> <p>This paper examines a scheme to guarantee loans to new businesses operated by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). It also considers more general international experience in using loan guarantees for housing purposes, and provides an overview of the recent National Housing Trust proposal, which involves a loan guarantee from the Scottish Government. The paper uses this range of evidence to reflect on the wider potential for supporting Scottish social housing provision by means of loan guarantees7.</p&gt