Dudley Council spends an average of two-and-a-half thousand pounds getting a vacant property ready for a tenant.
The cost of preparing one of the authority’s 21,000 homes for a new resident was revealed at a meeting of Dudley’s Housing and Assets Scrutiny Committee on September 25.
Committee members were told the average cost to the council in May 2025 when a property becomes void to bring it back up to standard was £2,451, which is a big reduction on the average of £5,695 during the 2024/25 financial year.
The average cost of a void property to the council for the first quarter of 2025/26 was £4,627.
Committee chair, Cllr Adam Davies said: “That presents as good news on the face of it, especially such a significant drop. I would be interested to know how we have made those savings.”
An officer’s report for the committee said: “The reduction in void delivery costs were achieved by reviewing the void specification to ensure that properties meet minimum Local Authority Rental Standard thereby improving turnaround time and making more properties available to the allocations team and reducing ongoing rent loss.”
Councillors were also told the authority is using its own staff instead of contractors to carry out work in void properties.
The amount of time it takes to get a property ready for a new tenant has also reduced; the average to complete standard set of repairs in a void dwelling fell from 26 days in 2024/25 to ten days in the 2025/26 year.
Kathy Jones, Dudley’s group director of housing and assets said: “With around 4,500 people at any one time on our waiting list, the sooner we can turn those void homes around the sooner somebody can be having that home.”
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