Our history

Albyn Housing Society Limited serves an ever-growing number of communities in the Highlands, providing good quality, affordable housing for thousands of people across the region. Through four decades the Society has listened and responded to the views of its customers, local government, communities and businesses in meeting housing needs in the Highlands.

Albyn Housing Society began in 1973 by building homes for the incoming workers at Invergordon smelter. The 1980s saw the Society building to complement local authority housing in six District Council areas. In the 1990s 400 properties and tenants joined the Society by voluntary transfer from Scottish Homes. Partnership working with the Highland Council (and others) has been a major feature of the early years of the 21st century, producing significant new provision.

What we do

Today, we manage over 3,500 properties in 60 communities across the Highlands. From origins of a handful of staff the Society now has 70 employees and has two offices; the registered office in Invergordon and a second office in Inverness. Our growth has seen the formation of our two subsidiary companies; Albyn Enterprises Ltd and Highland Residential Inverness.

Highland Residential Inverness expands the services and tenures we can offer our customers. As well as social rented housing, we also facilitate mid-market rent and low-cost ownership initiatives through HRI and offers quality and affordable factoring services.

Albyn Enterprises Ltd manages grant funded projects that provide money, benefits and energy advice to tenants. Albyn Enterprises also supports Albyn's innovation activities, such as developing new solutions to enable people to live independently at home longer. 

The Society strives to perform well as a customer-focused, innovative and equal-opportunities based business. We aim to exceed the performance standards required by The Scottish Housing Regulator and the auditors contracted to undertake internal and external audits of our activities. During recent years the Society has made innovations in providing more energy efficient homes including both new build homes and improvements to stock, to make our housing more affordable to live in.

We are dedicated to building homes and supporting communities in the Highlands and is doing so in a way which puts quality, affordability and sustainability at the forefront of its efforts, by recognising the wider impact of housing for the people of the Highlands. Appropriately, significant investment goes into ensuring that tenants with changing needs can remain in their homes through adaptations.

How we operate

Our Purpose: To make a positive difference to people’s lives through housing and related services

Our Vision: Everyone housed in affordable quality homes in successful neighbourhoods.

Our Mission: To provide excellent customer service, maintain and build quality homes, giving opportunities for people and communities to succeed.

Our Values:

  • We give respect
  • We are reliable
  • We do good & do it well