Tackling Britain’s housing crisis head-on

Your Housing Group is one of the largest housing providers in the UK, with more than 28,000 homes across North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands. Here, Brian Cronin, group chief executive, discusses how innovation and new thinking is starting to benefit the housing sector.

Brian Cronin

According to figures from Countrywide, renters across the country paid a record £50Bn last year. That’s a huge £1.8Bn increase from the previous year and I suspect the numbers will increase further as we approach 2019.

The news agenda is crowded with reports about the housing crisis. We all know there aren’t enough homes across the UK but what does that mean to the average consumer? And how do those of us in the business of housebuilding resolve it?

Most people still desire home ownership but how much of this desire is due to the rent sector’s chequered image? Renting is still stigmatised, inconsistent and not always cost effective. At Your Housing Group we want to see a transformation in the performance and the perception of the rental market, so people choose to rent a home in a community which suits them, rather than take it as a “needs-must” option. It is a lofty ambition but an essential one if we’re serious about solving the housing crisis. We’ve already taken some forward steps.

Making the industry more professional

According to the English Housing Survey, 800,000 rented homes reported a serious hazard last year – exposed wires, vermin infestations and mould – which resulted in many customers falling ill. It’s simply not acceptable that people should live in such run-down conditions. Renting must be a better experience than this, we need to raise standards and services. Landlords must take more pride and responsibility in what they do.

Last year, we made the decision to bring our repairs team in-house so that we could better control the delivery and quality of maintenance services. Our Fix 360 service is flexible, efficient and works around our customers. We use a digital platform to allow tenants to pay rent and book repairs services, and issues are logged with a maintenance representative who is closest to the home. Expecting customers to wait for a repair, that’s our responsibility to fix, is not acceptable, professional or customer-friendly.

Beyond this, we know that prevention is better than cure. Our asset management strategy has been developed so that our proactive maintenance programme makes disrepair less likely. We are spending more than ever on maintaining our homes, recognising this as one of the most important aspects of raising standards in the rental sector.

Offering flexibility and security

Every customer I meet has different needs and desires when they’re looking for a place to live. We know that the rental sector is too fixed in its approach, designed to make returns for private landlords rather than developed strategically around the needs of many different customers. That’s why we are building 5,700 new homes across a range of tenures over the next five years, something to suit the different stages in our lives.

The sector’s rigid approach means flexibility and security are major concerns for many tenants. With over 60% of UK landlords owning just a single property, the threat of their decision to sell up is very real, all too common and leaves tenants in a difficult situation. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, short-term tenancies are the sector’s default offer, leaving tenants with no peace-of-mind, little incentive to put down roots, take greater pride in where they live and support the local community. On the flip side, younger renters are more likely to want to move around for work or education, so even if they can afford to own a home, it may not be their preferred option.

This is where housing associations can disrupt the rental industry model. Our ambition is to offer portable lifetime tenancies, so that people can relocate without the hassle of exiting one tenancy and finding another. Such tenancies would give customers certainty and peace of mind in the long term a comfort, rather than being saddled with a 25-year mortgage. It’s a new way of thinking – renting gives customers the stability they crave and the flexibility they need as their lives change.

New thinking

Thankfully, housing associations across the country are ready to change. Downing Street has started to listen to housing providers, customers and the communities they live in.

Theresa May recently announced an extra £2Bn-worth of funding for social housing, signalling that the government recognises the value of affordable homes as the housing crisis still grips the country. Large commercial builders aren’t delivering enough affordable homes and have no real desire to do so. We need to step in, but we can’t tackle the crisis alone.

There needs to be a more strategic approach to land assembly, bringing new sites and local authorities together to encourage development at scale. The piecemeal one-site-at-a-time approach is simply not efficient and means it’s going to take too long to build the number of homes we need. We want to be building in the thousands, not the tens and hundreds. Taking a strategic approach opens up greater potential for institutional investment, where the scale and certainty of returns will make greater investment more viable. Such scale-of-build could be the catalyst for taking modern methods of construction from the single designer developments, to mainstream housebuilding and become the sector’s primary build method for decades to come.

Moving forward

Innovation will play a vital role in tackling the UK housing crisis. We need to think a little faster, be more efficient and agile, and stay one step ahead of the challenges the sector faces.

There is always more to do, but we need to take a forward-thinking approach if we’re going to change the rental market for the long term. It’s a great opportunity for housing associations to make a difference and I am proud Your Housing Group is one of those leading the way.

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