Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing is a newish concept. Most people see it as quasi-council houses provided by Housing Associations or the Council Housing Department hived off into a privatised body.

In fact it is much more than that, as explained by this article from the BBC explains.

What is not generally known is that councils now routinely demand around 40% of all houses or apartments on a new development are allocated for affordable housing. The developer has to provide these under a Section 106 agreement.

It is excellent that affordable housing can be built 'for nothing' through this mechanism, but I don't think that many investment buyers appreciate that a large part of the proceeds of the sale their executive style house will be devoted to building affordable housing for social tenants who will live next door to their private sector tenants.