Social housing landlords in England are planning to invest record amounts in repairs while also building new homes, according to the 2026 financial forecasts of private registered providers.

The data, published by the Regulator of Social Housing today (6 October 2026), indicates some anticipated stabilisation of the sector’s financial position, though also showed landlords were facing significant financial pressures from the trade-off between more and better social homes.

RSH Director of Strategy Will Perry said it was encouraging to see landlords preparing to invest record amounts in repairs while maintaining their ambition to build more affordable homes.

He said: “The sector’s long-term ambition is clear: more investment in existing homes, more new homes and more for social rent. These are not easy trade-offs, and the financial pressures need to be managed really carefully.

“Our job is to make sure landlords are alert to the risks and have the transparency, resilience and strategic focus needed to navigate them while delivering for tenants.”

This year’s Financial Forecast Returns (FFR) data showed aggregate interest cover over the first five years of plans comparable to that in the last set of forecasts – a metric which has previously been declining in each successive year.

Key factors in this are a slowing in the rate of increase in repairs and maintenance expenditure combined with increased income growth.

There has been a modest increase in development plans over the first five years, reversing the trend seen in recent forecasts.

A more substantial increase is seen over the ten-year term of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP), reflecting bids for grant that were being made at the time the plans were submitted.

To fund these plans, there is a greater increase in debt than has been seen in recent years with £54.7bn of new borrowing required over the first five years of plans and additional grant of £16.3bn forecast over the same period.

There remains substantial variation within sector with the largest providers (with over 40,000 homes) generally having a tighter financial position.

Landlords’ financial plans were prepared in early 2026 so do not fully reflect the financial impact of ongoing global events, consequential changes to inflation and interest rates, or outcomes of SAHP bid submissions – all of which are likely to influence the next set of submissions.

ENDS

Notes

• The FFR data was previously published with the Global Accounts, released in January. This year RSH has produced it as a standalone report to ensure the information is available to stakeholders as early as possible.
• The publication gives an overview of the financial forecasts submitted by providers managing or owning 1,000 or more homes.
• Both the report and an accompanying dataset giving aggregated data for the sector as a whole and subsets of providers are available on the website. This is the first time that we have published the aggregate financial forecasts dataset.
• The report and dataset do not include information relating to the 2025/26 financial year. This will be published as the ‘Global Accounts’ in January 2027.

source: GOV