By Mariama Nadworna, Interim Communications Manager
UKREiiF has become a focal point for conversations shaping the future of the UK housing sector, bringing together leaders across real estate, infrastructure and investment to address the housing crisis and accelerate delivery.
At this year’s event in Leeds, the Nationwide Foundation hosted three panel discussions at the Partnership Pavilion, convening voices from across the sector to explore how we unlock delivery, support new market entrants, and make better use of existing housing supply.
Across all three conversations, one thing was clear: the solutions already exist, but scaling them will require stronger collaboration, clearer frameworks, and a renewed focus on practical delivery.
In brief: our key takeaways
Panel 1: Backing housing entrepreneurs: What do SMEs and social purpose builders need to succeed?
Our first session explored the role of SMEs, community-led organisations and social-purpose builders in delivering a more diverse and resilient housing system.
Panellists highlighted a fundamental imbalance: while England needs around 90,000 social rent homes a year, delivery remains far below that level and smaller, locally rooted providers are still locked out of the system designed for larger players.
Key themes included:
- The need to unlock land, finance and procurement for smaller providers
- The importance of community-led models in delivering genuinely affordable homes and stronger social infrastructure
- The role of partnerships with larger developers and public bodies in supporting delivery at different scales
What we learned
Social-purpose builders are not a niche; they are a critical part of the housing ecosystem. But to succeed, the system around them must change access to land, funding and decision-making needs to be rebalanced in their favour.
Panel 2: Making the private sector work for everyone
Our second panel focused on how the private rented sector (PRS) can work better for tenants, landlords, councils and investors, particularly in the context of the Renters’ Rights Act (opens in new window) and place-based initiatives like Greater Manchester’s Good Landlord Charter (opens in new window).
The discussion made clear that regulation alone won’t fix the PRS. While legislative reform is important, creating a fairer and more effective system will also require better engagement, clearer communication and stronger local leadership.
Key themes included:
- The importance of place-based approaches, such as the Good Landlord Charter, to recognise and raise standards across diverse local markets
- A growing focus on landlord behaviour, particularly the “middle group” of unintentionally non-compliant landlords who need support as much as enforcement
- The need for clearer communication and practical tools, with a strong emphasis that “language matters” when engaging landlords
- The critical role of local authorities, who must balance enforcement with support and be properly resourced to do so
The panel also highlighted how diverse the PRS really is. From institutional investors to single-property landlords, motivations and behaviours vary widely, meaning one-size-fits-all policy approaches are unlikely to succeed.
Alongside this, examples like Homes for Good (opens in new window) demonstrated that social purpose and strong tenant support can sit within the PRS, showing what good renting looks like in practice
What we learned
Improving the PRS is now as much about implementation and behaviour change as it is about policy. Making it work for everyone will depend on combining regulation with local leadership, better communication, and a deeper understanding of how landlords and tenants behave in practice.
Panel 3: Unlocking hidden housing supply
Our final session turned to an often-overlooked opportunity: empty homes. While not a silver bullet for the housing crisis, they represent a practical, lower-risk route to increasing affordable housing supply, particularly when delivered through strong local partnerships.
The discussion reframed empty homes not just as a problem to be managed, but as existing housing supply waiting to be unlocked, alongside a wider opportunity to repurpose underused buildings across the public and private sector.
Key themes included:
- The need to recognise empty homes as a core part of the housing system, not a marginal issue
- The central role of local authorities, despite empty homes work not being a statutory function and often under-resourced
- The complexity of owner motivations, with barriers ranging from finance and knowledge to capacity and intent
- The importance of social investment models, enabling community organisations to acquire and refurbish homes for long-term affordable use
- A strong emphasis on partnership, with councils, investors, housing associations and community groups all playing a role
The panel also highlighted a structural challenge: while tools like council tax premiums exist, incentives don’t always align with outcomes and without sufficient capacity and funding, councils can struggle to act at scale.
At the same time, examples from across the sector demonstrated what’s possible. From community organisations bringing long-term empty homes back into use, to funds designed to support acquisition and refurbishment, there is growing evidence that these models can deliver real impact, quickly and locally.
Looking ahead, there was clear interest in scaling this work through devolution, better coordination of public assets, and stronger support for community-led delivery, including practical tools to help groups get started.
What we learned
Empty homes are a practical, place-based solution within a wider housing system. Unlocking their potential will depend on aligning policy, funding, local capacity and community action, turning hidden supply into genuinely affordable homes at scale.
Bringing it together: what connects these conversations
Across three very different discussions, a clear picture emerged – not just of the challenges facing housing, but of what it will take to overcome them.
1. From ambition to action
The sector isn’t short of ideas. From social-purpose developers to PRS reform and empty homes, there is growing consensus on what good looks like, and in many cases, working examples already exist.
What’s missing is not innovation, but implementation at scale.
The challenge now is to move beyond pilots and policy announcements, and focus instead on delivery: embedding new approaches, backing what works, and creating the conditions for these models to grow. Put simply, the conversation is shifting from what could work to what will we actually deliver.
2. The power of partnership
If there was a single defining theme of UKREiiF this year, it was partnership, not as a talking point, but as a necessity.
Every solution discussed relied on different parts of the system working together:
• SMEs and social-purpose builders need access to land, capital and expertise
• A better private rented sector depends on coordination between landlords, tenants, agents and councils
• Bringing empty homes back into use requires alignment between local authorities, communities and investors
The message was clear: housing delivery is now a collective effort. No single organisation, tenure or funding model can solve the problem in isolation. The question is no longer whether to collaborate, but how to do it more effectively and at pace.
3. Navigating complexity with confidence
Housing is often described as complex but across these sessions, there was a growing recognition that complexity isn’t the problem. Failing to work with it is.
The reality is a system defined by diverse actors, competing pressures and local variation: different types of landlords, developers operating at different scales, councils with varying capacity, and communities with distinct needs.
Trying to simplify that into one-size-fits-all solutions risks missing the point. Instead, progress depends on embracing that complexity; designing policies, partnerships and funding models that are flexible, responsive and grounded in real-world behaviour.
The opportunity lies in moving from seeing complexity as a barrier, to treating it as something that, when understood properly, can be navigated with confidence
Across all three conversations, what stood out is that we’re not short of solutions, we’re short of the conditions that allow them to scale.
Whether it’s supporting social-purpose housebuilders, improving the private rented sector, or bringing empty homes back into use, the answer lies in how we work together. That means building trust, aligning incentives and focusing relentlessly on delivery.
If we want a housing system that works for everyone, we need to treat it as exactly that, a system, and act collectively to make it work better.
– Kate Markey, CEO, Nationwide Foundation
Looking ahead
What’s clear from these conversations is that momentum is building across the sector. The challenge now is not identifying solutions but enabling them to scale, turning strong ideas into consistent delivery.
For the Nationwide Foundation, that means continuing to back practical innovation, strengthen partnerships and make the case for a more joined-up, long-term approach to housing. Because if the system is to work better, it will require sustained collaboration and a shared focus on what actually gets homes built, improved and lived in.