These Homes Passes 5000 Lettings Milestone

In September this year, a significant milestone in These Homes history was passed as the 5000th home was allocated.

Launched in April 2021, These Homes is a Digital Lettings service designed to give customers and prospective tenants improved access to affordable rented properties across Scotland. These Homes was built from scratch by Housing Online working in close collaboration with a partnership of seven Housing Associations, known together as “The Collective”:

• Berwickshire Housing Association
• East Lothian Housing Association (in partnership with the Homes For Life Housing Partnership)
• Grampian Housing Association
• Ochil View Housing Association
• These Homes North East Scotland, who are a collective of three Registered Social Landlords
  • Castlehill Housing Association
  • Hillcrest Homes
  • Sanctuary Scotland Housing Association

Since launch, new landlords have joined The Collective:

• Angus Housing Association
• Inverclyde Common Housing Register (a partnership between Cloch Housing Association, Oak Tree Housing Association, Larkfield Housing Association, Link Housing Association and Sanctuary Scotland Housing)
• Osprey Housing

"5000 allocations means 5000 households adequately housed in safe and secure tenancies with These Homes Registered Social Landlord (RSL) partners. For every one of those allocations, there is a person, a family that has been supported into a new home."

–Jennifer Soley, Housing Services Manager, Castlehill Housing Association

Providing access to affordable housing in a fair and transparent way is a constant challenge for Housing Associations. The process is often paper-driven, hard for prospective tenants to understand and involves a lot of manual processing, using time and resources that most Housing Associations simply do not have.

These Homes is a simple and straightforward way of letting homes to tenants that is fair, open and transparent. The partners in The Collective share the same Housing Register, advertise available properties, offering applicants a greater choice and more say in where they are housed. Applicants on These Homes only have to register on the site once and then have the ability to apply for properties advertised by any of the partner Housing Associations. Landlords can then build and work applicant shortlists based upon their own individual requirements and priority passes.

Jennifer Soley, Housing Services Manager, Castlehill Housing Association said:

" This milestone is an incredible success for The Collective. 5000 allocations means 5000 households adequately housed in safe and secure tenancies with These Homes Registered Social Landlord (RSL) partners. For every one of those allocations, there is a person, a family that has been supported into a new home and we are really proud to play our part in that. It has been a pleasure working with the These Homes Collective and we are looking forward to our continued success over the coming years."

In the two years since it went live, These Homes has over 25,000 active registrations and has now allocated more than 5000 properties, with a tenant satisfaction score of 8.2/10.

We now look forward to celebrating the next 5000 lettings.