Authors: Jackie Sadek and Peter Bill
Reviewed by: LightWork AI Team
With insights from Max Soper-Dyer, Enterprise Partnership Advisor

Britain’s housing crisis is one of the most pressing challenges facing the country today, yet it remains shrouded in misinformation, political inertia, and conflicting interests. In Broken Homes: Britain’s Housing Crisis – Facts, Factoids and Fixes, Jackie Sadek and Peter Bill cut through the noise with a book that is as timely as it is refreshing. It doesn’t preach, it doesn’t romanticise, it just explains.

This isn’t a dry policy book. It’s an insider’s guide written by two seasoned professionals with decades of experience in property and planning. Sadek and Bill offer a toolkit for understanding how we got here and how we might begin to dig ourselves out.

A Ground-Level Guide to a National Crisis

The authors start from ground level rather than getting lost in abstract economics or ideological grandstanding. They chart how successive governments have failed to deliver housing at scale, and how the planning system has become less about enabling development and more about controlling it. This led to an underbuilt, overpriced, and often dysfunctional housing market that serves neither renters nor buyers. 

What makes the book stand out is its straight-talking style. It’s fact-driven but never detached. Witty in places, but never arrogant. As Max Soper-Dyer, our Enterprise Partnership Advisor at LightWork AI, puts it: 

Sadek and Bill are both insiders who know the machine from the inside out, but they’re not afraid to call out where it’s broken. That’s exactly the kind of thinking we need in both public policy and proptech.

The Role of Factoids

One of the most useful contributions of the book is its demolition of what the authors call “factoids”, claims that sound true but collapse under scrutiny. The idea that we can’t build on the green belt? Debunked. Are immigrants putting pressure on the housing stock? Groundless. Will the private sector simply solve the problem if deregulated? Deeply flawed.

By separating genuine constraints from political smokescreens, the book creates space for meaningful debate. It also challenges lazy assumptions that often filter into tech-driven solutions.

“We can’t afford to build technology on top of faulty assumptions,” says Max Soper-Dyer.

This book forces you to ask better questions. Are we streamlining a broken system, or are we helping to fix it?

Fixes, not Fantasies

Crucially, the book doesn’t stop at critique. Sadek and Bill offer a series of pragmatic solutions, some bold, some incremental, but all grounded in political reality. These include simplifying planning rules, giving more power to local authorities, reintroducing proper regional strategies, and addressing the chronic shortage of skilled workers in construction. 

They remind readers, from housing activists to policymakers to tech founders, that no serious solution is possible without understanding the system’s architecture. You cannot fix what you don’t properly diagnose.

Where LightWork AI Fits In

For companies like LightWork AI, this book is more than just background reading. It’s a reminder of our operating environment. We build intelligent tools that streamline compliance, automate maintenance, and support letting agents and property managers. As Sadek and Bill show, the housing crisis is not just about inefficiencies; it’s about systemic design.

“After reading this, I found myself thinking differently about our role at LightWork,” said Max Soper-Dyer.

Efficiency is good, but systemic impact is better. If we can make housing operations smarter while supporting broader reforms, then we’re not just a proptech company, we’re also part of the solution.

Who Should Read It?

• Property professionals seeking a candid overview of the sector’s biggest bottlenecks

• Policy thinkers looking to move beyond ideology into implementation

• Founders and investors in proptech who want to understand the deeper structural context

• Anyone who suspects the housing crisis is more complex than what headlines suggest

Final Word

Broken Homes is sharp, precise, and much needed. Sadek and Bill bring clarity to a sector defined by contradiction and complexity. For those in property, policy, or proptech, it’s not just recommended reading, it’s required.

“There are too many half-informed opinions floating around in the housing space,” says Max Soper-Dyer.

This book is an antidote to that. It gives you the facts, calls out the fiction, and gives you something solid to build from.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Essential reading for anyone serious about housing reform. Intelligent, digestible, and grounded in reality, not rhetoric.

Want to see how LightWork AI is building smarter infrastructure for property professionals in a broken system? Follow us on LinkedIn or get in touch with our team.