A "flatmate mortgage" is a mortgage that takes into account the income that could be generated from renting out a room to a flatmate when a lender calculates how much people can borrow to buy a property. Most lenders will not allow for this kind of income when calculating maximum borrowing, yet for many people, it's how they're affording to pay their mortgage right now.
Every year we see the average age of the British first time buyer get a little older - currently, we Brits have to wait until we're 37 years old to buy our first property, unless we're getting help from the bank of mum and dad. Taking room rental income into account could help us get onto the property ladder much earlier.
Then there's the other side of the coin: there's a huge shortage of affordable accomodation in the UK. If more people were able to rent out rooms, this problem could be alleviated without the need to build new housing, without the need to destroy our precious green belt. It all makes sense; all it needs is a little help from our financial institutions.
Upad is supporting Easyroommate's campaign to get the mortgage industry and the government to make these sorts of mortgages available to hard-pressed UK borrowers. Check out how much more you could have borrowed if you could have taken a lodger's rent into account with Easyroommate's calculator (I was shocked!).
To show your support, sign the petition on the Number 10 website, or join the Facebook campaign.
I think we need to look at alternative schemes like this and avoid the doomed 100-125% mortgage as we'll be back to boom and bust.