EFL grows steadily. With the participation of the French property company ICF Habitat, two English housing associations and some new businesses, EFL has grown to 35 organizations; housing companies, universities and real estate industry.

With the participation of ICF Habitat, the housing fund of the French railway company SNCF with a portfolio of 100.00 homes, the real estate portfolio of EFL members has grown to 650,000 homes. The recent British entrants are the corporations Paragon Housing and Moat Housing, both located near London.

Other newly joined companies are strategic consulting company Ritterwald from Berlin and the French company PERL, provider of real estate solutions for social housing.

The European dimension of housing

In the European housing sector several countries face similar challenges such as ageing, energy efficiency of the housing stock, fewer public resources, urbanization and new forms of financing. Topics in which EFL members work together. EFL bundles experiences and innovates in these areas.

Added value through collaboration and smart solutions

The growth of EFL is related to the success of cooperation. The participants work together on concrete solutions. Including the development of intelligent products and services. But also the international exchange of knowledge is invaluable. As result of scientific support, sharing of know how and participation in EU-funded innovation projects, EFL members belong to the leaders in the market.

Future: Innovation in social housing

EFL is developing into an European laboratory for innovation in the housing sector. It is interesting to know that Europe has various enterprise forms for affordable housing: foundations, cooperatives, associations, public companies or private companies. And also the funding opportunities are large. In addition to traditional subsidies and loans from public banks, new forms of financing such as bond issues, financing through private equity and tenants shares are developed.

EFL aims to transfer pluralistic governance forms and financing models to other countries. To support this process, EFL will launch a joint investigation in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology. Also the opportunities for the creation of an European housing company in the social housing sector will be explored.