HomeViews has added L&Q, the UK’s biggest housing provider, to its roster of partners as the site expands into collecting verified reviews for housing associations and their developments.
The only review platform dedicated to residential property, HomeViews will provide L&Q with unprecedented insights into the performance of its BTS, Shared Ownership and rental portfolios. These buildings can be benchmarked against each other, against all the other G15 housing associations, as well as against UK average resident ratings on HomeViews for BTS and BTR developments.
The partnership – first announced last week in Property Week – has so far generated over 700 reviews for L&Q schemes – all of which are from carefully verified L&Q residents.
Review data so far shows that 86% of L&Q’s residents love or enjoy their environment, with the HA achieving an average of 4.3 out of 5 for location across all its schemes. In terms of benchmarking, L&Q owners rate their homes above the HomeViews all-time owner average, and also above the G15 owner average for every review category on the site.
One of L&Q’s highest-rated schemes is L&Q at Elephant Park, which Shared Owners rated at 4.24 out of 5, with design and location two elements owners said they would recommend.
Earlier this month, the Regulator for Social Housing published its Consumer Regulation Review 2020-21, which highlighted the primary importance of “learning from tenant complaints, and the need for registered providers to hear the messages tenants are giving them.”
HomeViews carefully verifies reviewers and asks a number of questions that generate highly detailed reviews about the resident experience of each building. Reviewers are asked whether they are tenants or owners, and what type – whether housing association, private tenants, Shared Owners, new build buyers or Help to Buy owners.
They are then asked to rate their building’s design, location, management, value and facilities. Reviewers also get to write detailed responses to questions around topics such as sustainability and what they wish they’d known before moving there.
“Customer reviews have always been such a valuable insight for us across the business as a whole, but having development-led content has provided much more detailed information that we can really use to understand our buyers and what drew them to specific schemes and homes.
“For us, customer reviews are also about ensuring we remain accountable to our buyers. Actively partnering with HomeViews to seek out more feedback from real buyers and those who rent homes in our new developments gives us great insight into the buying experience, helping us continually improve our services and our homes.”
John Lumley, Strategic Sales Director, L&Q
“HomeViews is delighted to welcome L&Q as our first major housing association partner. Owner and shared owner feedback has been both positive and insightful, allowing L&Q to make targeted changes and build on the success already achieved. As a result of the success of this initial phase, the partnership is already expanding into L&Q’s rental portfolio. We look forward to working closely with L&Q and other leading HAs to help provide the same transparency and insights that have benefitted other areas of the UK property industry.”
Homeviews has seen rapid growth since its inception in February 2019, with organic visitors increasing by 369% in H1 2021 compared with the same period the previous year. The site currently partners with 35 of the UK’s leading developers and operators – including charitable housing association A2Dominion.
HomeViews provides verified resident reviews of the UK’s housing developments. We’re working with developers, house builders, operators, housing associations and the Government to recognise high performers and help improve standards in the built environment.
