The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) recently released a report on their findings from a recent inquiry into the affordable housing industry capacity. The purpose of the report was to unearth solutions for three key issues:
1- Generating new affordable housing supply;
2- Finding tenants for the existing supply; and
3- Improving service quality, enhancing social mobility, and promoting tenant well-being.
The report contained many interesting key facts about affordable housing providers and gave some interesting insights about how the housing industry
and its support industries will shape up to be. From the view of field service industries, there are a few key insights to note.
Shortage of affordable homes for lower income earners
The shortage of affordable private rental homes available for households with very low incomes (lowest 20%) increased from 150,000 to 271,000 between 1996 and 2011. And because Australia’s population is always growing, social housing provisions have more or less remained static, ensuring only ‘highest-need’ applicants get access to the affordable homes.
What this means:
A growing demand for affordable homes translates to a direct increase in resource capacity, i.e., the resources available to the industry to provide and expand affordable housing services. Simply put, there’s going to be a huge demand for contractors to help build and maintain the proposed increase in the supply of affordable homes. This means an increase in infrastructure planning and field-service jobs that should provide opportunities for private construction companies to capture existing market share.
Management and maintenance costs for home in the public housing sector have increased
The ageing nature of the existing affordable dwellings has resulted in an increase in the management and maintenance costs as well as increased probability of tenant vulnerability.
What this means:
Maintaining assets is always more feasible than acquiring new ones. Evidently, most dwellings in the social housing sector would require periodic maintenance to keep its assets in proper condition. This entails ensuring the electrical wiring, plumbing, heating, structural integrity of the house is kept up to the mark. House owners will turn to trusted plumbers, electricians, carpenters and other field-service operators to provide them with quality work that ensures their home assets are maintained.
Australia’s lack of affordable housing poses an interesting problem that needs to be solved sooner rather than later. Whether the approach is to build new affordable homes or repurpose existing mid-income to high-income homes, we can expect huge work requirements for field service industries: Planners, contractors, electricians, plumbers, carpenters and similar civil service providers can expect to see an increase in work orders, as the industry will be inclined to maintain existing assets rather than replace them.
This poses an excellent opportunity for field service companies to expand their businesses. By providing better customer service, adopting modern automation methods, and effectively utilizing technology, field service companies can stand out from their competitors. If you’re someone who works for a field service company, then consider employing an effective field service management software to help track assets, organize workflow, and quote and invoice customers from the convenience of a single platform.
