Inspire New Homes attended the National Housing Federation Affordable Home Ownership Conference & Exhibition in Birmingham on the 3rd & 4th June. It was great as always to meet people in person, share ideas and best practices on how organisations are approaching sales.

Day 1 – Our founder Asha Agarwal was asked to kick off the first roundtable session of the day with the group on ‘navigating the viability and development challenges.’ This session got us all talking and discussing how best both the development and sales team can work better together. It was great to see a mixture of development and sales colleagues in the room.
Key takeaways from this session were:

*All organisations should ensure the new business team have a sign off checklist in place before buying new developments that has full sign off from the sales team
*Planning and contractor delays was a key theme
*Main areas that were causing viability tensions were delays in delivery and increased build costs or finance costs

Day 2 – Asha Agarwal chaired a panel session for the ‘Understanding your future customer sessions;
Key takeaways for this session were:

*Ayo Onibokun shared her experience as a shared owner resident of her buying experience and how shared ownership helped her get onto the property ladder. She shared that she felt communication from providers to buyers could be improved
*Data is a recuring theme and as a group we discussed what data needs to be collected, how best we can use the data and what changes it enables
*Jo Short MCIM talked about how the tone of shared ownership marketing has changed over the years and how best we can all work together to help change the narrative around the word shared

 

Main theme key theme over the two days were:

Understanding and supporting shared owners

  • Shared ownership can be life-changing, as highlighted by real life resident stories of becoming homeowners.
  • Understanding who your customers are and what they know is essential
  • Regular engagement is key, touching base with shared owners at least once a year should be standard practice.

Communication and public perception

  • Transparent, clear communication with local stakeholders is essential to building trust and support for shared ownership.

Customer stories and community engagement

  • Proactive engagement, such as inviting MPs and councillors to new home openings can showcase the value of shared ownership.

Affordability, lending and market dynamics

  • Strong engagement between lenders and registered providers is essential to ensure shared ownership remains a viable option.

 

We look forward to attending next year’s Affordable Home Ownership Conference 2026 held on the 4th June 2026 in London