The Data Observatory

The NRLA Data Observatory is a collection of official and other well-established data sources which when combined, provide a narrative of the Private Rented Sector (PRS). The NRLA tracks approximately 45 key data sets which are updated monthly, quarterly and annually. A selection of these appear in these pages.

Our Deep Insight blog provides a regular extension of the analysis which appears here, as well as those datasets which are not published in the Data Observatory section of this website.

The blog pages also features blog posts from other organisations and academics to provide insight on the PRS. Here you can also find more in-depth summaries of our regular reports and surveys.

 

Please note that covid-19 has affected the collection and publication of data, particularly data which is collected by local authorities. This means data is not as upto date as usual.  

Lending & housebuilding

Bank lending

Chart 1: Residential & BTL (Buy-to-Let) lending activity

Lending statistics from Bank of England

The value of gross mortgage advances increased by 18.6% in Quarter 3 from the previous quarter to £62.2 billion. This was the first increase since 2022 Q3, but remained 27.6% lower than a year earlier.

Mortgaging lending is now at the highest level since 2023 Q3. However, the values presented in this data – are in current prices, and do not take account of inflation.

The share of gross mortgage advances for buy-to-let purposes (covering house purchase, remortgage and further advance) decreased by 0.7percentage points from the previous quarter to 7.5%. This is the lowest level of lending accounted for by the BTL sector since 2010 Q3. Twelve months ago, the BTL sector accounted for 12.5% of lending.

The precipitous fall since is reflective of the recent low levels of confidence in the PRS.

Housebuilding - England

Chart 2: House completions - England

Housing completions chart

The third quarter of 2023 registered 38,550 housing completions, a drop from the 40,170 completions in the previous quarter. Looking more closely at the data: 

  • Q3 2023 completions is the lowest since 2017 (36,980).  

  • It is also lower than the 5-year average for Q3 completions (41,012). 

  • However, the figure is slightly higher than the ten-year average for Q3 (37,704).  

Are enough homes being built? On this chart, only in Q4 2022 and Q4 2020 did completions surpass 50,000 per quarter. It is then necessary to go back to 1986 to find a quarter in which completions exceeded this threshold (50,340). 

Social Dwellings

While the proportion of new homes classified as social housing saw a notable increase in Q1 2023 (as a proportion of housing completions), this increase begins to taper off in the subsequent quarters:

  • Q2 2023 and Q3 2023 witnessed a decrease to 23.3% and, most recently, 20.6%. 

The latest data shows that the 7,930 social dwellings built in Q3, was down on the previous quarter both in absolute terms (down from 9,340) and proportionate terms (from 23.3%).  

Housebuilding - Wales

Chart 3: Housing completions in Wales (Annual data)

New dwellings completed in Wales - annual

After a long interval StatsWales has recently begun to publish housing completion statistics once more. Note that alongside the data is the following note: 

"There is currently an undercount in the number of dwellings completed though this is estimated to be quite small." 

This is a result of the counting methodology and is not Covid-19 related. 

Total dwellings 

In 2022/23, total dwelling completions rose to 5,785, marking a 9.7% increase from the 5,273 in the previous year.  

  • It is also above the five-year average for total dwellings (5,498).  

Social dwellings 

Social housing completions remained stable in 2022/23 at 1,203, almost unchanged from the 1,215 completed in 2021/22.  

  • However, the proportion of total completions accounted for by social housing increased to 20.8% in 2022/23, up from 16.7% in 2021/22.  

Private dwellings 

There were approximately 4,582 private dwellings completed in 2022/23. This is a slight increase compared to the 4,391 2021/22. 

  • However, this is the highest number of private completions since 2019/20 (4,773).

Chart 4: Housing completions in Wales (Quarterly data)

Wales Housing completions - quarterly (data not collected during Covid-19)

The first quarter of 2023/24 (Apr-Jun) saw a total of 1,108 dwellings completed. This was a slight increase from the previous quarter (Jan-Mar) where 1,050 dwellings were completed. 

The latest quarterly data for Wales completions (Jul-Sep) shows that 1,000 dwellings were completed.  

  • This is the lowest number of completions since Jan-March of 2011-12.  

The number of completions in the first two quarters of 2023/24 combined stood at 2108. 

  • This represents a 28% decrease compared to the same two quarters in the previous year (2022-23) 

  • Moreover, it is the lowest ever combined total of these two quarters since records began in 1974-75.  

As a proportion of all completions, 21.3% were social housing completions. 

(There is a gap in data collection due to Covid-19)