How Peabody Improved Void Turnover Through More Efficient Key Management

 

Key Summary

  • The Partner: Peabody, a major UK social housing provider managing 109,000 homes.
  • The Challenge: Manual handovers and onsite lockboxes caused operational blind spots, leading to lost keys, frequent locksmith costs, and delays in property turnover.
  • How did Peabody use KeyNest?: Deployed KeyNest Points to store keys near properties, allowing remote access for contractors and agents without staff travel.
  • Key Results:
    • Time Savings: 2–5 hours saved per void per month.
    • Total Visibility: Full accountability and digital tracking of all key movements.
    • Efficient Turnarounds: Reduced void turnaround times through better contractor coordination.
    • Improved Security: Enhanced security by eliminating vulnerable onsite lockboxes.

Peabody is one of the UK’s largest social housing providers, responsible for 109,000 homes across London and the Home Counties, supporting around 220,000 residents. It also provides care and support services to around 25,000 people, helping residents live independently within their communities.

Within Peabody, teams responsible for managing and improving under-utilised parts of the housing portfolio are involved in a range of operational activities. This includes coordinating inspections, managing void works, enabling contractor access, and supporting property viewings when properties are prepared for disposal.

To support the operation of sales with multiple internal and external stakeholders involved. The team needed a more reliable and cost-effective way to manage physical keys.

The Challenge

Before adopting KeyNest, Peabody’s team relied mainly on lockboxes and manual key handovers.

This meant physical keys were sitting in Key safes with properties void during the disposal process. Tracking who accessed a property (and when) was difficult, and lost or unreturned keys created additional delays and costs.

These issues became more pronounced during extended void periods, when difficulties and delays occurred in the disposal process. 

As the volume of properties in the programme increased, the team needed a secure way to manage keys that was close to the property but also more secure than a key safe at the property, with the ease for the tracking of keys and who was collecting them.

“Before Keynest we were having issues with keys not being tracked properly especially when a property was void for an extended period. There was very little visibility, and we would only find out we didn’t have the keys when someone was visiting either for a job or a viewing. This slowed everything else down as we then had to urgently contact a locksmith.”  - Tom Cornelius, Project Coordinator, Asset Optimisation, Peabody

The Solution

Peabody introduced KeyNest Points to support secure and controlled access to properties across parts of its disposal portfolio.

With KeyNest Points, keys are stored securely in local partner locations around the corner from the property, typically within a 3–5-minute Drive. This means contractors, inspectors, and viewing agents can collect and return keys quickly, without the need for staff to travel for handovers or manage lockboxes. Keynest have been very open and helpful when needing new KeyNest locations.

KeyNest is now used to enable contractor access, alongside support for void inspections and agents showing properties to potential purchasers. Instead of coordinating physical handovers, access is granted only to authorised users, at the right time, with every action recorded automatically. This means that a range of stakeholders can attend the property with the ability to confirm and monitor access to the property.

This gave the team a clear overview of key movements and allowed for a secure location close to the property. Just as importantly, it introduced full accountability - the team could finally see who accessed which property, when, and for what purpose, and track when keys were returned.

“You can grant access remotely, and see exactly who collected a key and when, in a simplified and easy to monitor way.”  - Tom 

The Results

With KeyNest, Peabody simplified key management across properties while improving turnaround times and strengthening security.

Coordination between contractors, inspectors, and agents became smoother. As the team were able to track when keys were picked up and dropped off and pass this information on to the next team that required access. During void periods, this helped properties move through inspections, works, and viewings, more smoothly reducing overall void turnaround time.

Peabody estimates that KeyNest saves 2-5 hours per void per month across inspections, contractor visits, and viewings - reducing costs and streamlining the void process. Unnecessary lock changes have also been reduced.

Another key benefit, is that KeyNest has dramatically strengthened security. By storing keys in vetted KeyNest Point locations instead of onsite lockboxes, Peabody reduced the risk of lost keys and securitybreaches - a valuable safeguard for housing associations, helping reduce risks associated with external lockboxes.

Try KeyNest Points for Your Social Housing Portfolio

With over 5,000 KeyNest Points across the UK, KeyNest helps social housing associations, and local authorities manage property access more efficiently.

If you’re looking to reduce travel, improve accountability, speed up void turnaround, and strengthen security KeyNest Points can support your operations at scale. Get in touch to see how it would work for your portfolio.


“Keynest has provided an awesome improvement to our key management. It is an easy-to-use system, with great customer support. Any time there has been an issue Keynest support is readily available to provide support and fix the issue in a timely manner. Notifications are provided on any changes to keynest opening hours and alternatives sourced. Keynest has and will continue to be a major asset to our team.” - Tom Cornelius

 
property management, keynest pointsCharles Whitmore