Housing associations are providing some of the best homes in the country, according to a new National Housing Federation report.
The report – Taking stock: Understanding the quality and energy efficiency of housing association homes – has looked at the state of repair, accessibility, neighbourhood and environment, tenant satisfaction, energy efficiency and fuel poverty and highlights the quality of housing association homes across the country.
The report also identifies some of the specific challenges that housing associations and their tenants face – such as low household incomes and fuel poverty – which requires further action from the sector and the Government to resolve.
Key findings include:
- 45% of housing association homes are considered very good or good for energy efficiency – almost double the national average of 23%. This means an average saving of £850 a year in energy costs for those tenants, in comparison to tenants living in poor energy efficiency homes.
- Housing association homes are in a better state of repair than private rented homes. 38% of housing association homes need no repairs – compared to 29% of homes in the private rented sector.
- 79% of housing association tenants think their tenure is a good way to occupy a home – considerably more than private tenants (51%).
- 18% of private rented homes are in poor neighbourhoods – compared to just 12% of housing association homes.
- 16% of housing association homes are wheelchair accessible – four times as many as owner-occupied properties and over twice as many as Local Authority or private rented properties.
The Taking Stock report examines in detail the quality of houses in the sector and compares them to properties across other tenures to gain a picture of the quality of homes across England.
Kathleen Kelly, Assistant Director of Policy and Research at the National Housing Federation said: "The housing association sector shares the Government’s ambition to build the homes the nation needs to solve the housing crisis. Having built more than 40,000 new homes last year housing associations are key partners in realising that ambition.
“However, whilst doing so we must ensure that homes are high quality – housing associations are doing exactly that, building and managing hundreds of thousands of new homes of a consistently higher quality than homes in other sectors.”