The next generation of homes may already be standing. As the UK faces continued housing pressure alongside the need to decarbonise the built environment and revitalise town centres, reusing existing buildings offers an opportunity to rethink how we deliver new homes.

At the London Real Estate Forum 2026, our roundtable 'Housing the Future Without Building It: Can Existing Buildings Unlock the Next Generation of Living?' explored what it would take to make adaptation and reuse a more mainstream part of housing delivery.

The discussion highlighted a fundamental challenge: while converting existing buildings can offer a route to bringing homes into established communities, the current system does not always make it the easiest or most viable option. Tax arrangements, grant funding and the cost of uncertainty can favour demolition and redevelopment over refurbishment, even where an existing building has the potential to accommodate new homes.

Planning and regulatory requirements present further challenges. Balancing heritage conservation, building regulations, safety, energy performance and the quality of new homes can introduce complexity, cost and delays. Clearer guidance and greater certainty could help reduce risk for developers and design teams, making it easier to identify viable opportunities and progress projects with confidence.

Unlocking housing supply also means looking beyond large-scale developments. Vacant upper floors above shops, underused commercial buildings and smaller sites could all contribute to the homes we need, particularly in town and city centres. However, smaller projects can face disproportionate financial and administrative barriers, limiting opportunities for smaller developers and businesses to bring buildings back into use.

Design has an important role to play, too. Existing buildings rarely offer a blank canvas, requiring creative approaches to layouts, space and performance. Models such as co-living, alongside more flexible approaches to tenure and occupation, could help make some buildings work for contemporary needs. Realising these opportunities will also depend on developing the skills and confidence needed to make refurbishment a more familiar, repeatable process across the industry.

The roundtable pointed towards a package of changes rather than a single solution: better-aligned financial incentives, clearer planning pathways, proportionate design standards and earlier understanding of the opportunities and risks within existing buildings.

Reuse will not be the right answer for every building, and new construction will remain essential to meeting housing need. But if the ambition is to increase housing supply, the conversation needs to move beyond how many new buildings we can construct to how effectively we can use the buildings we already have.

The opportunity is there. The challenge is creating the conditions for existing buildings to play a much greater role in delivering the homes of the future.