About our properties

The Association provides permanent homes for people in general housing need in the Isle of Wight. Our properties are dispersed throughout the Island, some in towns, others in more rural locations. They are mostly designed to form small communities.

As at July 2010 we own 297 homes throughout the Island. Six of these are on a shared ownership basis. All the others are for rent, let on full secure or assured tenancies, and allocated on the basis of need. Our flagship scheme is an affordable housing project for local people in the Parish of Nettlestone and Seaview, completed in September 2008. We now work with a mainland based consortium, the Source Development Partnership, to deliver our new homes (see below).

Whilst most property acquisitions arose from schemes we built ourselves, we do have a number of individual homes purchased through the grant assisted initiative known as "Existing Satisfactory Purchases".

To assist the Council with essential temporary housing, we also lease over 50 homes from individual private landlords on leases ranging from three to ten years. These are let to tenants on assured shorthold tenancies, using the same allocation principles as we do for our own properties. Leased properties provide an important source of affordable housing at a time when there is a serious shortage of permanent accommodation, primarily because of lack of funding and an inadequate planning framework.

All our homes currently meet the criteria of the Decent Homes Standard.