In this paper we present the world’s first social housing property index. The index is designed to be consistent with the IPD indices, but includes extra analysis tailor-made to the needs of social housing corporations. The index not only reports the receivable direct property return, but also provides an estimate of the effect on that return which may be traced to the social aims of housing corporations. The Îsocial dividend’ or Îpolicy effect’ reflects both the impact of lower rents and extra required expenditures on general living conditions. The index measures returns on direct investment in residential property. All participants in the index have agreed to adopt a common approach to valuation, and using specially developed software for the valuation of residential properties. In this paper we describe the methodology used to construct the index. In addition, we will show how this index can be used by social housing corporations to improve their performance, taking into account both social and financial return and risk.
