星空传媒

An international property research company is planning to set up a performance index for social housing across the UK.

The index, which Investment Property Data Bank hopes to produce, could bring new institutional investors into the sector.

It could rank housing associations and councils according to operational efficiency and give an equivalent of the investment performance measurement used in the firm鈥檚 private property indices.

The index is mainly intended to allow housing professionals to compare the performance of different associations.

But it will also be available to investors who are considering putting money into the sector.

Investment Property has a similar index for social housing in Holland and launched a regeneration index in the UK last month.

Its residential index, which measures developers鈥� return on capital, was set up three years ago. It includes some associations鈥� private housing arms such as Blueroom, which is part of Places for People.

Dr Kevin Swaddle, a director of Investment Property Data Bank, said: 鈥淚t would produce a quasi-investment return, which could be interpreted as a measure of operational efficiency much more than with our commercial indices.鈥�

He said if the index showed social housing was a good investment, institutional investors, such as pension funds, might be keen to invest in it.

Institutional investment makes up about 拢5m of the 拢30.6bn lent to housing associations in total up to March 2003, according to the most recent figures published in March last year by the National Housing Federation and Housing Corporation.

Social housing consultant Nick Waloff said: 鈥淚nstitutional investment in social housing has been low compared with what goes into residential private property. We think [the index] could encourage more institutional organisations to join the banks [and invest in the sector].

鈥淚t鈥檚 giving investors what they want by making the sector prove its worth rather than saying: 鈥榃e are nice so invest in us鈥�.鈥�

Work on the index is expected to begin later in the year but as yet there is no launch date.