From mortgage credit scores to smart home apps, advances in data and technology are dramatically reshaping how housing is bought and sold by homeowners and investors, operated by landlords, and inhabited by all of us. New technologies could address problems like energy inefficiency, unaffordability, and undersupply of housing. But without an explicit focus on social justice, such advances may reinforce existing housing market inequalities through facilitating discrimination and exclusion, enabling surveillance of tenants, and contributing to rent increases and displacement.

In December 2019 the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence brought together people from across academia, policy and practice for a half-day workshop to explore how housing tech is changing the housing system and the implications for (in)equality. The workshop explored:

• How will advances in housing tech change the housing system over the next decade?
• And how can we ensure that housing tech challenges, rather than exacerbates existing housing inequalities?

Blog series

Following the event, we asked some of the speakers to write blogs which give a flavour of what was discussed.

• James Tickell, Campbell Tickell: Automation and the fight for a human future
• Dr Alison Wallace, University of York: Exploring the possible impacts of housing tech
• Dr Thomas Wainwright, Royal Holloway, University of London: Does a maturing rental proptech sector need to work more closely with tenants?