The Effectiveness of Housing Management

This article examines the performance of different kinds of landlords in providing housing management services to their tenants by reviewing a number of recent studies on housing management effectiveness. In particular the performance of mass‐landlords (councils and larger housing associations) is contrasted with that of small‐scale, locally‐based, resident controlled landlords such as co‐operatives or community‐based housing associations. Although the evidence is not conclusive, it points to worse performance by large landlords. The paper then assesses the relevance of this evidence to current housing policies and argues that they are unlikely to lead to more effective housing management which is often held by the Government to be one of their major objectives.