As seen in Inside Housing, 03 July 2026.
A modern car contains hundreds of sensors. It monitors tyre pressure, engine temperature, fuel consumption and driver behaviour in real time. That data flows to the driver, to the manufacturer, to the mechanic. Nobody considers this remarkable; it is simply what we have come to expect.
A social home, in which a family eats, sleeps, raises children and grows old, often contains none of this technology. We find out something’s wrong when a resident complains, when a repair is raised or when a journalist asks questions. By that point, the harm is already done.
I raised this comparison at a roundtable at the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum in Leeds several weeks ago, which brings together chief executives and senior directors from across the social housing sector. The response was not defensive; it was recognition.
Most people in that room instinctively understood that the gap between what we believe is happening in our homes, versus what is actually happening, has become one of the sector’s most pressing and least comfortable problems.
The Awaab’s Law effect is already visible in the data. Emergency hazard reporting has risen sharply across the sector because many organisations are now paying closer attention to prevention than before. That’s progress. But it also raises a harder question: what were we missing when we were not looking?
“Several organisations are deploying Internet of Things sensors at scale, using live data to understand what is happening inside their properties”
The honest answer is that damp, mould, and underheating are significant issues, often identified late through complaints or financial data, leading to delayed responses. Overheating is increasingly a serious risk, with over 14% of 40,000 social homes last summer at high risk for heat-related health problems, a 140% increase year-on-year. These conditions affect people living in these homes now.
The technology to change this picture exists and is already in use. Several organisations are deploying Internet of Things sensors at scale, using live data to understand what is happening inside their properties and responding before conditions become critical.
One provider has used targeted funding to retrofit more than 4,500 homes with monitoring technology across successive waves of investment. The direction of travel is clear.
What is less clear is whether the sector is yet turning that data into genuine intelligence, insight and action. Collecting information and acting on it are separate, and some organisations currently sit in the gap between them.
Teams without access to connected insight are making decisions in partial darkness. Sensors are paused in some cases because data confidence isn’t yet established. These are solvable problems, but they require investment in skills and culture, not just hardware.
“Consumer standards now demand evidence-based outcomes, not process compliance”
One of the sharpest observations made around our roundtable was about how the sector typically begins with the asset: the survey, the schedule, the compliance checklist. These things matter, but they are not the only starting point if the goal is to understand how a home is performing for the resident.
The most compelling example was new build homes, where residents were given access to data on their interactions with their properties. Residents were making informed decisions, seeing real savings and engaging positively with their landlord. This is the result when data is regarded as belonging equally to the resident and the organisation.
The regulatory environment is shifting steadily. Consumer standards now demand evidence-based outcomes, not process compliance. Boards that do not understand that distinction will find themselves exposed. The organisations best placed to navigate what comes next are not those responding to regulation reactively, but those that have already built visibility into their stock and have the cultural infrastructure to act on it.
The ambition has to be understanding stock and residents, and putting insight in the hands of all the people who can do something with it: the housing officer on a visit, the repairs team identifying a pattern, the board member asking the right question.
The tools and the data exist, so none of this is out of reach. What is needed is the leadership commitment to connect it, act on it and recognise that a home our residents cannot rely on is a service we cannot be proud of.
Our residents deserve to live in homes that are as well understood as their cars. We know the challenges facing housing providers are real, but together we must find a way to overcome them, so that every resident has a home as intuitive as their car.
Leann Hearne, interim chief executive, Switchee, and former chief executive, Livv
