Property maintenance remains a vital part of the rental sector as providing legal homes that are comfortable for tenants to live in is the top priority.

New research by property maintenance solution provider, Help me Fix, reveal the true cost of maintenance in the rented sector.

The UK has roughly 29.7 million homes and 10.6 million of these, a grand total of 48%, are rented properties.

Out of the 10.6 million rented homes, 5.6 million are privately rented while the remaining 5 million include social enterprises that are owned by housing associations and local councils.

The true cost of maintaining a rental home

On average the cost of maintaining a property each year should cost 1% of the property’s value. Therefore, since the average home is worth £278,436 the annual maintenance should total around £2,784 for a the vast majority of private and social landlords.

Once applied to the total rental stock and considering that the current annual maintenance cost for the UK rental market is £29.7 billion a year, this amounts to a total of £15.6 billion for private stock and £14.1 billion for social stock.

The results show that the capital has the highest total of annual rental maintenance as these cost a staggering £9.7 billion.

Annual rental maintenance costs amount to £4.8 billion in the South East, 3.1 billion in the East of England, 2.7 billion across the South West, and 2.4 across the North West.

Founder of Help me Fix, Ettan Bazil, concludes: “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, this is time and resource that could otherwise be put to better use, so it’s lucky that we live in an age where technology is disrupting old-fashioned maintenance methods.”

“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 £7bn per year should this approach be adopted on a sector wide basis, raising resident living standards in the process, not sacrificing them.”