Action on Empty Homes publishes the most authoritative guide to empty homes data

See the numbers in your area for 2021 below - based on Government data published by MHCLG 10 Nov 2021.

See where most homes are out of use long-term across the country CLICK HERE - in almost a hundred local council areas at least one home in every 50 is out of use long-term and adding all vacants and second homes reveals that around 1 home in every 25 in England has nobody living in it.

For an A to Z listing for all local council areas in England CLICK HERE - this sheet shows numbers of long-term empty homes, second homes (also known as 'furnished empties') and the total number of homes out of residential use in each area.

Each year Action on Empty Homes analyses the Government’s official data on long-term empty homes, producing the only comprehensive analysis of this data.

This is published as a report entitled ‘Empty Homes in England’

- the comprehensive 2019 edition including a broad discussion of data sources, consistency and recent trends can be downloaded here

- the most recent summary version for 2020 is here

Commentary on the 2021 data:

Our commentary on the 2021 data is here - this shows that the five year-trend is still one of steadily rising numbers of long-term empty homes, despite a worsening housing crisis.

The 2021 data is now now nearly 20% higher than it was in 2016 the year following the end of the last national Government Empty Homes Programme and the lowest point in the last decade.

Numbers of wasted long-term empty homes have risen from 200,145 in 2016 to 238,306 in 2021. This means numbers of wasted long-term empties are now at their highest level since 2012, if the exceptional rise during the housing market shutdown caused by the pandemic (2020 data) is ignored.

Pandemic impact:

Our commentary on the Council Taxbase 2020 figure for Long-term empty homes, which showed a fourth consecutive year on year rise by a massive pandemic-impacted 42,540 to 268,385 is here.

More data... 

Where is the problem worst? CLICK HERE  To view the 2020 data on long-term empty homes sorted by occurrence level (%) for every local authority in England, this also shows the annual rise (levels of empty homes rose in 9 out of ten local authorities in England - for our media release click here)

Where were the biggest rises? - To see the 2020 data ranked by change (rise or fall from the largest % rises to the biggest drops, at council level) CLICK HERE

For the numbers in your area for 2019 - based on Government data published Nov 2019 click here

To see what happened in your area in 2018 (two years ago) click here

You can read the our ComRes polling of MPs views about empty homes policy, published at the end of 2018 here

Government Statistics

Each year the government publishes data on vacant dwellings for each local authority and for England as a whole. This data is derived from local authority Council Taxbase data, which is a snapshot of the position in October each year.

To view the long-term empty homes data please go to table 615 vacant dwellings: you can access the latest Government statistical release from 11 November 2020 here

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants

We summarise the (2019) data by region and county and include numbers, change and levels for each local authority here

In last year's Empty Homes in England 2019 report published Monday 23rd September 2019 we also look at the prevalence of homes classified as 'second homes' if you are interested in this data you can see the levels by local authority, regionally and nationally, here

We advise reading the notes that come with the data before using the statistics. From Monday 23rd September 2019 our new edition of Empty Homes in England will also be available to shed light on the data.

If you would like to discuss this with us further please get in touch at [email protected]

For media enquiries please click here for details of how to contact the team and for further information