Lisburn DUP rep fears Home Office and Mears housing group causing rents to 'go through the roof'

A Lisburn DUP rep has raised fears the 'Mears' housing group working with the UK Home Office is causing rental prices to "go through the roof".

Concerns of rents due to spike almost 100% in the new year were highlighted in council chambers amid private sector stock being bought up by the 'housing solutions company' across " Lisburn and Belfast".

The issues were raised to NI Housing Executive (NIHE) CEO Grainia Long at a special meeting with the housing authority chief saying she had been "very concerned" at the recent portfolio growth of Mears in Northern Ireland.

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Alderman Paul Porter said: "I work in Belfast and Lisburn and this question is as a result of what I have seen over these two areas.

"In regards to the impact if any of the company 'Mears', a housing provider who deal with temporary accommodation for refugees. They are also buying and renting properties within the Lisburn and Castlereagh area.

"Have you (NIHE) noticed an impact in regards to the price of rentals as a result of Mears coming in?"

According to Mears' website, the 'housing solutions company' works with the Home Office to provide housing and support to asylum seekers who enter the UK.

The group with more than 5,600 employees currently provide and manage 17,000 homes for local and central government and is also responsible for maintenance of 750,000 social housing homes in the UK.

The elected rep added: "Remember there is a limited stock of housing, which means they become more valuable and the price of rents go up.

"I have a lady who came to our office, and she is currently paying somewhere in the region of £800 per month and in January/ February she says her rent is going up to £1,400, which is just through the roof.

"The issue with Mears is that they are directly going after the same stock as you (NIHE) and I raised this with the Home Office."

CEO of the NIHE, Grainia Long responded: "This is a very, very important question. I suppose if I said generally speaking because the growth and proliferation of growth into the market by Mears has been relatively recent, I think it is probably too early for me to give you a definitive answer.

"Pre-Covid, we as a Housing Executive we were placing about 3,000 households into temporary accommodation a year in Northern Ireland. After the pandemic and since then and as of now, we are placing about 11k households into temporary accommodation, so that is a massive growth in temporary accommodation usage."

She added: "There are three aspects for the growth in demand. First is directly pandemic related such as sofa surfing and having to live in a bubble.

"That was followed by growth in a different group of people, in the cost of living crisis when a lot of landlords left the sector all at once, particularly in Belfast and surrounding areas, I'm sure Lisburn too.

"It would be clearly speculative of me, but what I can tell you for sure is that we saw a growth in the number of households made homeless because landlords left the sector, that was the first group of people who came to us.

"The second group of people, which is a much smaller group of people, are those who came to Northern Ireland had sought and received leave to remain and we have seen a small growth in that demand."

As of November, Mears has lifted its 2024 forecast to around £1.13bn of revenue and at least £60m in adjusted pretax profit. For 2023, Mears had reported revenue of £1.09bn and a statutory pretax profit of £46.9m marking a 38% year change.

Ms Long said:"It is the case that the growth in Mears portfolio has had an impact on the housing market here. It must of done, you can't suddenly grow a portfolio of that size.

"Now, we were very concerned about that two years ago, we sought meetings with Mears, we now have regular meetings with Mears and rightly so.

"The tone of those meetings are productive, but I am always very clear to Mears that their duty and the Home Office duty to ensure that they give us sufficient notice periods of 28 days, when households have received leave to remain to enable us to plan.

"There are times when that works well and times when it works less well. I think that is where we have to work hard and well together. I think whoever does the research into all of it in the next two to three years, we will then have more definitive answers."

Alderman Porter responded: "It is an issue sadly that people don't want to talk about. Whenever this was first raised and I was in meetings with the council CEO, the Home Office and Mears, my main issue at the time was about making people homeless to make somebody else not homeless.

"I am also now worried about the massive rise in rents. We are being hit from both ends, the massive price of rental and also the availability of rental. Without rental while people wait to get a house through Lisburn and the Belfast region, if you take that sector out or limit the choice, you are going to massively increase the waiting lists and that is something we have to try to fight against."

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