FlexMyRent

FlexMyRent offers a new way for residents to plan and pay their rent.

FlexMyRent provides social housing tenants with the opportunity to personalise their rent payment schedule over the year: flexing payments to better suit expected cash-flows.  By planning ahead and alerting their housing provider to any likely financial pinch-points tenants can also be better engaged and supported by tenancy sustainment services.

We trialled the scheme with Southern Housing. To do this, we developed a digital onboarding platform built on Amazon Web Services. This enabled tenants to create their payment proposals and answer questions about their financial support needs. The platform provided an automated risk assessment of proposals, and invited Income Officers to log in to finalise decisions.  Our platform communicated these to tenants and also provided monthly updates informing them of their progress against their plans.

An independent evaluation of the trial has now been completed. The trial engaged nearly 900 tenants, and 360 plans were submitted. FlexMy Rent reduced rent payment anxiety for two-thirds of tenants with these also reporting better spending management and improved satisfaction with their landlord.

Despite growing cost-of-living pressures more than half of all accepted proposals were successful. Success rates also improved over time as the platform was further iterated to better assess risk.

""Flexing my rent has reduced my anxiety levels significantly. I no longer worry about falling behind on payments during tight months."

"I never guessed my landlord would do this...it is brilliant."