Authors
Jerry Chen
Isaac Newton Trust Academic Career Development Fellow in Land Economy
Bidding Behaviour and Outcomes in Choice-Based Lettings
Principal Investigator: Dr Jerry Chen, University of Cambridge
Council Partner: London Borough of Camden
England’s choice-based lettings system gives eligible households the opportunity to bid for social housing, but the complexity of points-based allocation means that many residents make repeated, low-probability bids with limited understanding of their likely outcomes. This project, led by Dr Jerry Chen at the University of Cambridge in partnership with the London Borough of Camden, will use nearly a decade of de-identified administrative data to develop interpretable machine learning models that predict context-sensitive points thresholds and identify behavioural patterns contributing to system inefficiencies. The project will co-design officer-facing and resident-facing prototype tools, and will host a sector-wide symposium to share findings and support replication — contributing to a more transparent, equitable, and well-understood social housing allocation system.