How much to maintain the rental sector? Around £30bn, study says

Maintenance in the UK rented sector totals a whopping £30 billion a year, according to new research.

Property maintenance solution provider, Help me Fix, finds that across the UK, there are a total of 29.7 million homes and around 10.6 million (48%) are rental properties.

Of that 10.6 million, private and social enterprises are evenly split, with some 5.6 million privately rented properties versus 5 million socially rented homes – meaning they’re owned by housing associations and local councils.

Generally, the cost of maintaining a property each year sits at roughly 1% of the property’s value. With the current average house price hitting £278,436, this means annual maintenance costs total £2,784 per property for private and social landlords and management companies. 

Apply this to total rental stock and the current annual maintenance cost for the UK rental market is £29.7 billion a year: £15.6 billion for private stock and £14.1 billion for social stock. 

Regional maintenance

As expected, London is home to by far the biggest rental market on a regional level and, as a result, has the largest annual rental maintenance bill at £9.7 billion. 

In the South East, annual rental market maintenance costs total £4.8 billion, with the East of England (£3.1 billion), the South West (£2.7 billion) and the North West (£2.4 billion) also home to some of the largest annual maintenance bills in the UK rental market. 

Help me Fix founder, Ettan Bazil, says: “Ongoing maintenance can be a sizeable outgoing when it comes to managing a rental property, but it’s also a necessity and ensures that the accommodation provided to private and social residents is fit for purpose and above board.”

“Not only is the monetary total enormous, but the time and effort that is being spent completing these works is also a full-time commitment, particularly for management companies who are responsible for a large number of rental homes.”

For social housing, in particular, Bazil believes time and resource could otherwise be put to better use. “It’s lucky that we live in an age where technology is disrupting old-fashioned maintenance methods,” he adds.

“By allowing landlords and property managers the ability to consult, assess and advise residents on their maintenance issues via a trained professional, but in a digital capacity first, we’ve been able to dramatically reduce unnecessary expenditure and labour hours, halving annual maintenance costs in the process. “

“Applied to the social sector alone, that’s a saving of £7 billion per year should this approach be adopted on a sector-wide basis, raising resident living standards in the process, not sacrificing them,” Bazil concludes.