We first published our Blueprint for Furniture Provision in Social Housing in 2022, thanks to funding from Fusion21 Foundation. At the time, we knew that many more social landlords were considering more ways to support tenants, and furnished tenancies can be an ideal solution.
We spoke to over 30 social landlords, speaking to those running FT schemes to understand how they operate and the challenges they have overcome, and to those looking at introducing schemes to find out what questions they need answering.
The response from the sector was so positive and we have had many more conversations with landlords over recent years, some of whom have now set up new furniture schemes.
The challenges then are the same now, finding the necessary capital outlay to introduce a new scheme, so we partnered with our colleagues in our sister charity FRC to create a new furniture rental service, Furniture Flex.
It was this, and changes to legislation and pricing that led us to decide it was time to update our Blueprint, our detailed guide which covers everything a landlord needs to know to prepare a business case for a new furnished tenancy scheme.
The updated Blueprint still highlights the huge opportunities an FT scheme can offer to a landlord, as well as the benefits to the tenant, as well as exploring the funding and budgeting implications, the operational requirements and much more, with an expanded case studies section featuring some of the new landlords who have set up, or are in the process of setting up, new furniture schemes.
We believe at least 10% of all socially rented properties should be offered as furnished properties and we hope that this document will help to deliver this target.
Please see the 2022 recording of our Blueprint for Furniture Provision in Social Housing webinar, featuring presentations by EFP, Ian Fyfe, Furnished Tenancies Manager at Torus, and Paul Aitkin, Group Commercial Manager at Karbon Homes:
Case study – Stockport Homes Group
Here is our video explainer for tab one of the Financial Modelling spreadsheet
Here is our video explainer for tab three of the Financial Modelling spreadsheet
