Letting our homes
In April 2020 we increased our rents by 2.7%. This was in line with the Government’s 2020 rent standard which allowed social housing providers to increase their rents by 1% plus the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
We set the rent for our Social Rented homes in line with the Government’s policy on target rents and based on the size and value of the property. Our average Social Rent per week is £124.77. This is the combined average for all our properties across London, Hertfordshire and the South East. See the table below for the regional average weekly rents by property size.
Our rents for new Social Homes and some of our rents for existing homes have been set at Affordable Rent level, which was introduced by the Government in 2011. Affordable rents are capped at 80% of the market rate. Our average Affordable Rent per week is £201.01. This is the combined average for all our properties across London, Hertfordshire and the South East. See the table below for the regional average weekly rents by property size.
Average Social Rent per week in London
£140.35
Average Social Rent per week in Hertfordshire and the South East
£117.18
Average Affordable Rent per week in London
£214.79
Average Affordable Rent per week in Hertfordshire and the South East
£176.66
Satisfaction with new home re-lets
79%
against a target of 80%
Rent arrears
4.18%
target 4.25% or below
Average rents per week
Average Social Rent per week 2020/21
Average Social Rent per week 2020/21 (this includes homes in London, Hertfordshire and the South East)
Average Affordable Rents per week 2020/21
Average Affordable Rent per week 2020/21 (this includes homes in London, Hertfordshire and the South East)
*Please note: the average rent of a two-bed home is higher because we have more two-bed homes in London, where rents are typically higher, than we have in areas outside London.
Breakdown of Social Rent per region
Average regional Social Rent per week 2020/21 by property size
Breakdown of Affordable Rent per region
Average regional Affordable Rent per week 2020/21 by property size
Re-letting homes
With many people in need of a home, we work hard to ensure we can hand over homes soon after they become vacant. We check the property is safe, clean and in a good state of repair before people can move into an empty home.
Our target time to get this done is 28 days from one household moving out and another moving in. We took on average 80.6 days to do this during 2020/21, which was mainly due to the Covid-19 restrictions in place during the year.
The increase in the days it took us to move new residents into a home also had an impact on the money lost in rent from empty homes. We lost 17.8% of potential rent money due to homes being empty which is higher than the 1.26% we achieved last year. While the Government restrictions in place contributed to our performance in this area, there are ways we can improve and things to learn from for next year.