From Fixing Problems to Finding Patterns: What Can Your Repairs Data Reveal?
For social landlords, repairs are no longer simply about fixing what’ s broken. With millions of repairs taking place every year and mounting scrutiny of property condition and safety, the quality of information behind each repair matters as much as the repair itself.
Repairs are often the most visible service a landlord delivers. For residents, the experience is simple: something’ s wrong, and they want to know what happens next. For landlords, it’ s considerably more complex, involving diagnosis, prioritisation, contractor allocation, appointments, compliance and follow-up, all held together by information that has to be right first time.
A widening gap between volume and satisfaction
The scale is significant. In 2024 / 25, landlords completed almost 15.1 million responsive repairs in England, including 3.8 million emergency repairs, yet satisfaction with the time taken to complete the most recent repair averaged just 69.5 %.*
Early 2025 / 26 analysis from Housemark, covering 223 landlords and 2.7 million homes, shows that figure climbing to 73.2 %. This is encouraging, but still short of where residents and regulators expect it to be.†
That gap matters. A missed appointment, wrong diagnosis or repeat report can quickly erode trust- a pattern borne out in the Housing Ombudsman’ s 2024 / 25 Annual Complaints Review, which found property condition complaints up 43 % year-on-year, with 73 % of those cases upheld against the landlord.‡
Understanding what sits behind the repair
The issue isn’ t a lack of data. Repairs teams generate huge volumes of it: what was reported, where, how it was diagnosed, what work was needed, whether it recurred. The challenge is turning that into something useful, for example, is this repair isolated, or part of a wider pattern? Does it point to a property needing further investigation, or a health and safety risk? Are contractors getting enough detail to fix it first time?
These questions carry more weight as regulation tightens. The Regulator of Social Housing’ s Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to hold an accurate, evidenced understanding of stock condition. Awaab’ s Law has sharpened this further: its next phase, extending statutory investigation and repair deadlines beyond damp and mould to hazards including excess cold, fire, electrical faults and structural defects, comes into force on 30 November 2026- a hard deadline for widening diagnostic and recordkeeping capability well beyond where many landlords sit today.
Vivid: diagnostics that work for staff and residents
Vivid’ s experience shows what this looks like in practice. As part of a wider digital transformation, it replaced its repairs system and redesigned its diagnostics journey around different customers, property types and tenures, supported by M3Central Repairs and Diagnostics, with clearer repair categories, tailored resident guidance and dedicated profiles for property, communal and estate issues.
The results speak for themselves: over 30,000 online accounts, with around 3,000 repairs now raised online each month, a substantial rise on the previous year. The gain isn’ t simply moving repairs online, it’ s collecting better information at the point of reporting, so staff can diagnose repairs more consistently and contractors arrive better briefed, with built-in advice helping residents resolve straightforward issues themselves.
From repair data to better decisions
Technology can’ t solve every repairs challenge. But better-connected information gives people the context to make sharper decisions, spotting recurring problems, flagging properties needing attention and building a stronger evidence base for investment and compliance.
The question isn’ t how much repairs data a landlord holds. It’ s whether that information helps the right person understand the problem, act on it and learn from what happens next, turning individual repair reports into safer homes, better services and more informed decisions across the organisation.
M3 Housing provides software, consultancy and training to help social landlords efficiently manage housing maintenance and development process, with flexible solutions covering the full project lifecycle— from appraisal and development to ongoing asset management. Visit us at www. m3h. co. uk to learn more.
Sources: * Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2024 / 25: Headline Report- GOV. UK † Housemark: early analysis of 2025 / 26 Tenant Satisfaction Measures ‡ Annual Complaints Review 2024-25 | Housing Ombudsman
102 Issue 28