Choice Housing has secured a £50 million loan from bLEND Funding Plc to allow further investment in social homes provision across Northern Ireland. The transaction between Choice and The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC) and their bLEND funding framework was completed on Wednesday. Choice confirmed that they secured the funding at an effective rate of 2.14% fixed until April 2054.

Borrowing at such a low rate provides the stability for Choice to continue to invest and grow in their social housing offering whilst managing risks associated with for example, the impact of a global pandemic.

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Choice Housing will use this funding stream to fund their Social New Build Programme aimed at delivering over 800 new social homes over the next 2-3 years.

Choice Group Chief Executive, Michael McDonnell said: "We are pleased to announce this new funding from THFC/bLEND, a first for Northern Ireland. As a result of this arrangement, we were able to access the capital markets quickly and effectively and fixed our cost of long-term finance at historically low rates.

"The pandemic has impacted every sector across society and social housing is no exception and whilst our performance in terms of meeting our social homes targets has been good, particularly in maintaining a high level of service provision during the pandemic, multiple lockdowns has had an impact on our development plans.

"We engaged with THFC to find a tailored, competitive financing solution that aligned with our wider business objectives but that ultimately provided us with the freedom to invest more in our social housing pipeline."

As an existing borrower from THFC group, Choice Housing's bLEND loan indicates the strengthening of a longstanding relationship, and bLEND's entry to the Northern Irish social housing sector.