Less than a quarter of housing association new builds are social rent

Inside Housing’s annual survey of the 50 biggest housing association builders gives a clear picture of organisations progressively abandoning their ‘social purpose’. In the absence of social housing grant from central government we were told that cross-subsidy was necessary to fund social rented housing. But as the concentration¹ and commercialisation of the sector procedes apace, the statistics of what they have built show their priorities.

Of the 40,070 completions by the 50 housing associations with the highest number of new builds-

• only 24.2% were social rent
• 26.3% were “affordable rent”
• 33.8% were low cost home ownership and
• 8.5% were market sale.

There has been a big increase in “affordable rent” numbers owned by housing associations. The Regulator of Social Housing tells us that since 2015, Affordable Rent units have increased year-on-year, with general needs units increasing from 132,264 in 2015 to 376,175 in 2024. The higher rents are a key driver (see note below) as well as commercial interest rates.

For the Table of the top 50 housing association builders – extracted from Inside Housing table

Download a PDF here

Note

The Regulator of Social Housing records that the average social rent for Housing Associations, in England in 2024/25, including any service charge, was £124.16

The average “affordable rent” was £164.01 (it includes the service charge)

For London the average social rent was £168.09, the “affordable rent” was £239.46.

The difference us quite an incentive to housing associations to charge “affordable rent”.

1Although there are over 1,500 ‘private registered providers’ 200 of them hold 96% of the stock. Just 19 of them, with 40,000 or more, hold 42% of the stock.