Basingstoke and Deane Homebid is a website that the council and their partner housing providers advertise social housing vacancies on each week. In order to bid on properties, you need to be on the housing register, which is maintained by the council.
If you would like help to use Basingstoke and Deane Homebid you can watch the Homebid presentation, which tells you how to apply for housing and make bids. Click
here to watch the presentation, which lasts for about six minutes.
How will Homebid work?
Under Homebid you still have to fill out an application form and be accepted onto our housing register. However, instead of waiting until you are offered a home, you can play an active role in finding a home for yourself.
Empty social housing properties are advertised each week on the dedicated website www.basingstokehomebid.org.uk and printed newsletters will be made available at lots of places within the area. A list of these places is attached at the bottom of this page, as well as a list of all the recent lets advertised on the Basingstoke Homebid site.
Adverts give lots of information about the homes – a bit like an estate agent’s advert. You are able to get information about the area the home is in, including schools, shops, bus routes. The adverts show icons or pictures, representing features and facilities, as well as a photograph of the property (where available). The adverts also include information to help you know whether the home is suitable for you, for example an advert for a three bedroom house might suggest that people with two or more children are most likely to be offered the home.
People who want to be re-housed will need to look at the adverts each week to see if there is a home which they would like. If there is, they bid for it. Bidding does not mean putting down money - the term bidding is used to mean show an interest in. There are different ways to bid including through the website, by telephone or by text message. People who need extra help with bidding can ask another person to place their bids for them, for example a support worker, friend or relative.
Adverts are live between one minute past midnight on Thursday morning and midnight on Monday. This gives applicants five days to put their bids on each week. After the bidding is closed the applicants for each property are sorted into a shortlist based on their housing need band and waiting time. The applicant with the highest need band and longest waiting time will be offered the home. At this time eligibility will be checked and they will have the opportunity to look at the home and decide if they want to accept it. If they do not accept the home it will be offered to the next highest person, and so on until it is accepted.
Although the council will still have to take into account people’s level of need for housing when offering homes, the advantage of this scheme is that customers will have more choice over the homes and the areas they live in.
