420,000 UK dwellings stand empty in a state of disrepair – equivalent to more than the number of households in Birmingham – according to the most recent research by propertyfinder.com...

Meanwhile, the recent Barker report states that there is a shortfall of 600,000 homes for England’s current needs, let alone predicted demand. At very little cost, these homes could be utilised to help restore some balance between housing supply and demand in the UK market. 

Current government targets for new builds of 200,000 per year are insufficient to rectify the current shortfall, and are well below UK household formation – predicted to rise at a rate of 223,000 until 2026.  

Predicted annual immigration of 185,000 - 190,000 (Treasury’s December 2007 pre-budget report) is adding to the pressure on housing supply and the number of single person dwellings continues to climb.

According to the DCLG, it would cost just £11,580 each on average to make these dwellings fit for habitation – about a tenth of the cost of building a home from scratch. 

An enormous waste of resources

Warren Bright, chief executive of propertyfinder.com commented: “An enormous resource of housing stands empty and unused, equivalent to almost two years’ housing supply - it is a huge waste. 

‘We are letting a valuable source of extra housing crumble, instead building at extra financial and environmental cost. It’s also popular with local residents who may be hostile to new build but whose house prices and quality of environment would benefit from renovations of derelict homes.

“Admittedly, not all of this housing can be used as some is in parts of the country in need of larger scale regeneration, but even in areas of extremely high housing demand, property stands unrenovated and empty.”

112,000 of these empty homes are social housing – in fact, social housing is proportionately much more likely to be empty and unfit for habitation than private housing.  The cost of renovating social housing is a mere £6,753 per property.

Local authorities ‘failing’

Warren Bright continued: “Gordon Brown has announced a new programme of council house construction yet a lot of social housing could be provided at a fraction of the cost of construction.”

 There are a further 404,000 properties standing empty, despite being fit for habitation, placing additional pressure on the housing market.  This housing is disproportionately in the social sector. 5.2% of all social housing stands vacant, just half of which is classified as unfit.  This is opposed to just 2.4% of owner occupied housing standing vacant. 

Warren Bright concluded: “Despite promises of more affordable housing from our new prime minister, local authorities are failing to target housing supply issues.  One small step towards helping the housing supply problem would be to actually make use of the empty social housing available.”