Number of Social Homes Increases

Social housing providers own 2,586,115 homes, a 2.4% increase on the total for 2011 according to the HCA’s Statistical Data Return (SDR).   The data comes from an annual survey and includes data on size and type of home, location and rents over the year. Key data points from the SDR include:

    *1.4% (26,156) of General Needs stock was vacant.  This is a slight reduction from the 2011 figure of 1.5%.  Vacant Supported Housing and Housing for Older People stock reduced from 5.1% in 2011 to 4.4% in 2012.

    *A total of 4,114 homes were sold to tenants, 3,989 were demolished and 3,463 were disposed of for non-social housing use.

    *The average net rent for General Needs stock owned by large Private Rental Providers (PRPs) was £83.20 per week at 31 March 2012.  This represented a 6.3% increase from 2011.  The average gross rent (including any service charges eligible for housing benefit) was £86.27 per week.

    *At 31 March 2012, 1.9% of social rental stock owned by PRPs did not meet the Decent Homes Standard, including cases of tenants declining improvement works to their property.  This was a reduction from the previous year, where 2.4% did not meet the standard. Read more on the HCA website.