Housing associations could build 87,000 more homes over the next decade by cutting inefficient repair and retrofit spending, new Domna research warns

This could fund 87,000 new social rented homes over ten years. The research comes as the sector faces mounting legal pressure to improve the quality of homes it already manages. Awaab's Law extends on 30 November 2026 to cover further significant hazards including excess cold and heat, falls, fire and electrical hazards. Every social rented home must reach EPC C against one reformed measure by April 2030 and a second by April 2039. And around 2.36 million English households are projected to be in fuel poverty in 2025 on the government's narrowest measure, rising to 7.63 million on a broader affordability measure. Cold, poorly insulated homes account for around one in five excess winter deaths in England, of which one in ten is attributed specifically to fuel poverty.

The findings are set out in Closing The Social Housing Retrofit Gap: How Housing Associations Can Unlock Value, Cut Costs And Attract Investment, drawing on Domna's benchmarking of contractor pricing and property-level retrofit costs across its client base.

The knowledge gap at the heart of the problem

The report argues that one of the main reasons retrofit money is not going as far as it could is that most housing associations do not have deep in-house expertise in retrofit specification, contractor cost benchmarking or whole-market procurement. Contractors scope homes up to the grant cap rather than to what each home actually needs. Repair and retrofit teams run on separate systems and sometimes schedule conflicting work on the same property. Framework prices drift upwards without routine comparison to the wider market.

A housing association on its own does not usually have the market data or the specialist capacity to spot where this is happening. Partnership and scale are what make the transparency possible. Working at scale, either collectively or with specialist partners who bring independent benchmarking and whole-market visibility, is how smaller and mid-sized associations can access the same cost discipline that only the very largest providers can afford to build in-house.

Where the waste shows up

In one example from Domna's benchmarking database, a housing association was paying contractor prices 93% above market benchmarks for low-energy lighting, 87% above for thermostatic radiator controls and 79% above for internal wall insulation.

In another case, a retrofit programme originally estimated at £2.8 million was reduced to £1.9 million once individual properties were assessed to determine what each one actually needed, cutting projected spend by roughly a third. The report's analysis of housing association stock finds retrofit costs per home range from around £1,200 at the cheapest quarter of homes to more than £91,500 for the top 1%, with a median of just £5,400. On that evidence, a meaningful share of social stock could reach EPC C for a few thousand pounds through simple measures, rather than being scoped up to the full retrofit grant cap.

Domna estimates that better contractor pricing could generate around £1.6 billion in annual savings across the sector, with improved coordination of major repairs delivering a further £328 million and lower ongoing maintenance costs after retrofit a further £61 million. Together, these equate to around £2 billion a year, or a fifth of total sector repair and maintenance spend. These are modelled estimates, rather than savings already realised.

The five fixes

The report sets out five practical fixes housing associations can act on today.

• Join up asset management and retrofit data. Teams running day-to-day repairs and teams running retrofit often work from separate systems. A simple data audit maps the overlaps, prevents duplicated visits and stops conflicting work on the same property.

• Let the home guide the grant. Scope each home to what it actually needs, not to the government grant cap. Under the current Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund, the standard capital grant is capped at £7,500 per home, rising to £15,000 for eligible off-gas low carbon heating and £20,000 for eligible on-gas low carbon heating. Sorting stock into minor upgrades, targeted retrofit and strategic investment decisions keeps grant funding for the homes that genuinely need it and funds easier measures through the in-house budget.

• Move to open-book contracting. Standard closed-book framework contracts hide where the money is going. Open-book terms, with a target cost agreed up front and actual spend reconciled against it, give the association visibility of real costs and real margin.

• Push for framework reform. A smaller number of meaningful, mandatory, government-run frameworks, properly resourced procurement teams at Local and Combined Authorities, and scoring that rewards results would stop the drift towards whichever framework gives the answer the association wants.

• Check contractor prices against the market. Once a contractor is on a framework, prices tend to drift upwards without comparison to the wider market. A benchmarking exercise on the top three measures by spend almost always finds at least one line item priced well above market rate.

Alongside those operational fixes, the report also calls for reform of the Existing Use Value for Social Housing (EUV-SH) valuation methodology, which it argues does not adequately recognise investment in improving existing properties. It recommends that RICS convene lenders, valuers and housing associations to examine how evidenced improvements in property condition and performance could be better reflected in valuations, potentially unlocking additional borrowing capacity.

The report also examines how private investment and alternative financing structures can help housing associations fund improvements to existing homes, setting out four blueprint case studies already being used by peers:

• Legal & General and Hyde Group - a 50/50 joint venture launched in March 2026, combining capital from L&G's annuity portfolio with Hyde's national housing platform, beginning with a portfolio of more than 1,000 social rented and shared ownership homes.

• Pension Insurance Corporation and Bromley Council - a £67 million long-term, inflation-linked financing deal agreed in 2021 to purchase up to 300 affordable properties, maturing in 2071, designed to help the council reduce its reliance on costly emergency accommodation.

• Clarion Housing, Sero and Tallarna - a solar financing pilot in Bromley using a special-purpose vehicle to raise private capital and own the equipment installed in homes, aiming to fund solar panels, batteries and renewable heating across at least 1,500 homes, with a guaranteed 10% reduction in residents' energy bills backed by insurance from Tallarna.

• Sovereign Network Group and Lloyds Banking Group - a £100 million loan from Lloyds to Sovereign Network Group to fund retrofit of thousands of social homes across the South, West and East of England including London, the largest single loan Lloyds has made under this programme to date. The lending sits within a wider £500 million commitment underwritten in part by the National Wealth Fund.

Industry voices

Anna Moore, chief executive of Domna, said:

“Housing associations are already paying for much of what needs to be done. Our research suggests there is around £2 billion a year of that spending that could be put to better use, including substantial price gaps for the same work, programmes scoped up to a grant cap rather than to what the home actually needs, and retrofit and repair teams working past each other.

“Every pound lost to duplicated work or uncompetitive contractor pricing is money that cannot be invested in making another home warmer, safer or cheaper to run. Getting the basics right on buying and planning could extend programmes to thousands more homes without waiting for another government spending commitment.”

Andy Hulme, group chief executive of Hyde Group, said in a contribution to the report:

“We cannot afford to treat improving existing homes and building new ones as competing ambitions. Housing providers have an obligation to make the homes we already manage safe, warm and fit for the future.”

Paul Hackett CBE, chief executive of Southern Housing, said in a contribution to the report:

“Costs have risen, regulatory obligations have increased and borrowing capacity is under pressure. Particularly in London and the South East, the need for new affordable housing is greatest in some of the places where associations have the least financial room to manoeuvre.”

Neal Ackcral, chief operating officer, Hyde Group, said in a contribution to the report:

“Customers don’t neatly divide their experiences into repairs, retrofit, compliance and customer services. They want problems sorted, their homes kept safe and clear information about when work will take place. More joined-up information helps, but the people and skills behind it matter just as much.

“Getting energy-efficiency works right requires more than skilled installers. We need surveyors who understand what each home needs, contract managers who can challenge specifications and colleagues who can explain the process and manage delivery. Work that is poorly scoped or carried out incorrectly can waste money and sometimes create further problems.

“Improving existing homes is as much about how housing associations organise themselves and their supply chains, as about the level of funding available.”

Geeta Nanda, former chief executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, contributes a separate call for better property-level data to decide which homes should be improved, held or sold.

Dan Germann, managing director of Durkan Regen, said in a contribution to the report:

“Open conversations about scope, design, costs and programme risks should start early. The aim should be to agree what each home actually needs, what a sensible target cost looks like and how variations will be handled if conditions change.”