Social Business Brokers CIC was set up in 2010 to bring people together to develop enterprising solutions to complex social problems.

One of the !rst social issues we addressed was that of the 5,000 empty homes across Leeds. These properties have been empty for six months or more, often falling into disrepair. Around 90% of them are privately owned and there are many reasons why they fall empty. With increasing demand for homes to rent and buy, bringing empty homes back into use is more important than ever.

In April 2013 we secured a 12 month contract with Leeds City Council, worth 100,000, to o"er the Empty Homes Doctor service, supporting owners to bring their properties back into use. The main targets within the contract were to work with 120 owners and bring 25 homes back into use.

The support we o"ered depended on the needs of the owner. We o"ered anything between 2 and 30 hours of support. We have also worked hard to encourage private sector businesses and third sector organisations to get involved in o"ering solutions, often brokering simple conversations that proved to have wide ranging impact.

This report summarises what we achieved with the Empty Homes Doctor service in 2013 and what weve got planned for 2014.

Social Business Brokers:The good we did in 2013

EmptyHomesDoctor

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What we achieved

Of the 137 homes we worked on, 26 homes were brought back into use, of which:

17 were brought into use as homes for rent

3 were sold through estate agents

1 was sold at auction

5 owners moved in to the property or changed the use of the building

We expect a further 17 homes out of the 137 cases to come back into use by the end of our current contract in March 2014 exceeding our target of 25 homes

20 cases have been passed back to the empty homes team at the council, and we continue to o"er support to the remaining 74

Top Council wards we worked in were:

Burmantofts and Richmond Hill 22%

Beeston and Holbeck 14%

Armley 10%

Gipton and Harehills 6%

Middleton Park, Garforth & Swillington both 5%

How the Empty Homes Doctor works

Our process

The council writes to empty home owners on our behalf letting them know about our service. Owners then get in touch and we meet them at their properties. We produce a detailed Empty Homes Doctor report outlining the options, so that the owner can decide what they want to do, and we help them however we can.

Who owns the empty houses?

*These !gures are based on the 115 cases where we knew the owners circumstances.

The value

We estimate the value of work for local businesses came to 20,000 over the course of one year.

12k for local agents and auctioneers 6k for local contractors like roofers and central heating !tters.

2k for local solicitors

We began recording this information part way through the year so we estimate that the real !gure will be higher and that there is potential to generate much more work for local businesses in the long term.

Case study

Mr and Mrs W recently retired and decided to invest their pension lump sum into a terraced house in one of the main student areas of Leeds.

They renovated a three-bedroomed property but eleven months later the house was still empty. They were obviously keen to rent it out but could not understand why they had no success.

We researched the local housing market and it was clear that the student housing market was changing, with lots of purpose built student accommodation recently built in the city. We also looked at how their current agent was marketing the property. Whilst they o!ered a cheap deal, they had no presence in the local market and the photos they had taken of the house were of poor quality. We shared information about local letting agents and put the couple in touch with Let Leeds - who visited them at the property and did an appraisal. Let Leeds suggested that there would be demand for the property as a 2-bed professional let.

Even though marketing it as a 2-bed let meant that their rental income would be lower, Mr and Mrs W were happy with this approach. The agent took new photos of the property, advertised it, and within two weeks the house was let out at 500 per month, providing the couple rental income and a home for two more people in Leeds.

Professional landlords 56

One-o" landlords 15

People inheriting a home 17

Change in personal circumstances 23

Older person moving into long-term care 4

In 2014 we want to reach more owners with our Empty Homes Doctor service, bring more properties back into use and engage with more local businesses.

We want to ensure the Empty Homes Doctor service is better known in Leeds, so were improving our processes, and investing in our marketing, in particular an Empty Homes Doctor website.

We will continue to work closely with the council to improve how we target empty homes where we think our approach can have most impact.

We will develop the relationships weve got with local businesses, and explore options for generating referral fees to invest further in Leeds Empties.

We will pilot an approach to make it easier for !rst-time buyers to buy empty homes.

We will explore how to take the Empty Homes Doctor service to other cities.

We will continue to report on the impact of Leeds Empties and produce a detailed report in 2014-15.

Whats next?

If you have any questions or comments on our work, please get in touch:www.leedsempties.org.uk home@leedsempties.org.uk 0113 200 9383@LeedsEmpties

This summary report covers the period 1 February 2013 to 31 January 2014. The Empty Homes Doctor was piloted in February and March 2013 with a Leeds City Council Transition Fund grant, and a twelve month contract was agreed in April 2013. Please email us if you would like to read the full report.

Our thanks go to Andy Bagley from Real Improvement for helping us to gather and analyse these statistics, and to organisations that have supported us this year, including Leeds City Council, Deloitte, the RSA, Stepping Out Foundation and Santander Foundation

Rob GreenlandCo-director, Social Business Brokers

Gill CouplandCo-director, Social Business Brokers