industry news
Housing survey findings contains mixed news for rented sectors
contains over 1 million homes that fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard. The latest findings from the English Housing
W
Survey highlight that some form of government supported investment could be justified to improve conditions in the private rented sector. Intervention is most required to tackle damp, improve heating systems and to upgrade their insulation. Help could come in the form of taxation
incentives, which could complement the tough action to crack down on rogue landlords, outlined in the Housing & Planning Bill. With an increasing number of residents being families with children, the average private tenant is very different from the past.
Decent homes
Overall a fifth of all dwellings (20 per cent or 4.6 million homes) fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). This represents a significant reduction from the 7.7 million sub-standard homes in 2006, when 35 per cent of homes failed to meet the standard. The private rented sector has the highest
proportion of non-decent homes (29 per cent) while the social rented sector has the lowest (14 per cent). This is probably the result of government backed DHS funding in council housing and new building of HA homes since the 1980s. In total 1.3 million homes in the private rented
sector were non-decent compared with 578,000 in the social rented sector. This is almost certainly linked to the age of the stock and under-investment in certain components.
Older houses
The private rented sector has the largest proportion of homes (33 per cent) built before 1919 compared with both owner occupied (20 per cent) and the social rented sector homes (7 per cent). The private rented sector has a comparatively
high proportion of flats made from converted houses (11 per cent). The proportion of low-rise purpose built flats was lower in the private rented sector (22 per cent) than in local authority (35 per cent) or housing association (34 per cent) stock. About a million homes (4 per cent) in England
have problems with damp, compared with 2.6 million (13 per cent) homes back in 1996. This represents one of the most serious problems given its impact on the health and well-being of residents. Private rented dwellings are more likely to be
older and therefore more likely to have defects to the damp proof course, roof covering, gutters or down pipes, which can lead to problems with rising or penetrating damp affecting at least one room in the property. Some 9 per cent of private rented dwellings have some type of damp problem, compared with 5 per
hile the nation’s housing stock is in better condition overall than ever before, the private rented sector still
50%
Percentage of homes that fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
cent of social rented dwellings and just 3 per cent of owner occupied dwellings.
Insulation & heating
The energy efficiency of the English housing stock is improving and the average SAP rating of dwellings is now 61 points, up from 45 points in 1996. The SAP rating measures the overall quality of a property’s insulation, from zero (the lowest) up to 100 (the highest). The owner-occupied and private rented sectors both have an average SAP rating of 60. In general, the social rented sector was more
energy efficient, in part due to the wider use of wall insulation, but also because of dwelling type. The social rented sector contains a higher proportion of flats, which have less exposed surface areas (external walls and roofs) through which heat can be lost, than detached or semi-detached houses. The private rented sector has the lowest
proportion of homes with central heating (85 per cent), followed by housing associations (88 per cent). Owner occupied and local authority homes had the highest rates (at 94 per cent and 93 per cent respectively). Older, less energy efficient boilers are also more
prevalent in the private sector. 15 per cent of private rented dwellings have a standard boiler rather than one of the more modern condensing boilers, compared with 11 per cent of social sector dwellings.
Smoke alarms
While the majority of homes had at least one working smoke alarm, a quarter of households have never tested their smoke alarm. Overall 88 per cent of households have at least
one working smoke alarm but this varies by tenure. Private renters were least likely to have
10 | HMM March 2016 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
“The latest findings from the English Housing Survey highlight that some form of government supported investment could be justified to improve conditions in the private rented sector”
at least one working smoke alarm (81 per cent), compared with 88 per cent of owner-occupiers, 92 per cent of local authority renters and 93 per cent of households in housing association properties. Around a quarter (22 per cent) of households
have never tested their smoke alarm. This also varied by tenure with private renters the most likely to have never tested their alarm (33 per cent). By comparison 27 per cent of social renters and 18 per cent of owner-occupiers have never tested their smoke alarms.
HMM Stats
In 2014-15, the average age of a first-time buyer was 33, up from 31 a decade earlier. The average first-time buyer needed a deposit of £42,505
Private Rented Sector
Rented Sector
Social
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