Sector grows by almost 34,000 social homes, boosted by for-profit growth

This growth in for-profits has been predominantly driven by a 53 per cent increase in general needs stock and a 35 per cent increase in LCHO.

For-profit providers own just one per cent of all social stock, although this is slightly more than in 2022 (0.7 per cent).

More than half (58 per cent) of the social units owned by for-profit providers are LCHO and 41 per cent are general needs low-cost rental.

Registered providers reported owning 3.2 million units, including social and non-social tenures, while local authorities reported owning 1.6 million homes, including low-cost rental and LCHO units.

Registered providers owned 1.3 per cent, or 41,537 units, more in 2023 than they did in 2022. The majority of the increase was due to increases in general needs units (27,140) and LCHO units (14,278).

This 1.2 per cent increase in overall general needs units is the largest rise in overall units and the first increase in general needs social rent units (5,809) since 2017, with a large proportion added by for-profit providers.

The 230 large registered providers, those owning 1,000 or more units of social housing, owned 96 per cent of all stock.

Meanwhile, the majority of stock owned by local authorities is general needs low cost rental stock (1.5 million units), and the majority of this (98 per cent) is general needs social rent stock, with the remaining two per cent being affordable rent.

Since 2022 the number of low cost rental units (including affordable rent) owned by local authorities has dropped by 5,917 units. A loss of 9,358 social rent units was offset by an increase of 3,441 affordable rent.

Registered providers built, purchased or acquired the majority of new homes in the sector, accounting for 87 per cent of the total increase in affordable rent and 98 per cent for LCHO properties.

The statistics showed that 83 per cent of social homes in England are general needs (social rent and affordable rent), while supported housing makes up 11 per cent and LCHO six per cent.

Will Perry, director of strategy at the RSH, said: “Our statistics for 2022-23 show that the sector continues to build and acquire much-needed new social homes across the country.

“These data are a really important reference point for [private and local authority] registered providers and anyone who wants to understand the key trends in the sector over the past year. It is essential that providers continue to have good-quality data to inform their strategic decision-making, especially around rents and the condition of homes.”

Elsewhere, the data showed that as expected, rents increased over the year. The average increase in general needs average weekly net rents was 4.1 per cent between 31 March 2022 and 31 March 2023, in line with the limit set for 2022-23.

The average weekly general needs rent in England was £98.20 with variations across different regions of the country. Rents were lowest in the North East (£82.08) and highest in London (£121.09).

The data also showed that levels of sales, lettings and evictions seem to be stabilising after a few years of fluctuation during and following the pandemic.

Will Perry and other representatives from the Regulator of Social Housing will be speaking at the Social Housing Annual Conference on 30 November in London (co-located this year with the Inside Housing Development and Regeneration Summit). For the full agenda and to book your place, click here.