20th August 2012
Selling expensive social housing as it becomes vacant could create the largest social house building programme since the 1970s.
The sales would raise £4.5 billion annually, which could be used to build 80,000 to 170,000 new social homes a year and reduce the housing waiting list by between 250,000 to 600,000 households in five years.
These are the key findings of a new report from the Policy Exchange - Ending Expensive Social Tenancies: Fairness, Higher Growth and More Homes.
The report claims that ending expensive social housing would be extremely popular with all sections of society, including social tenants.
It also argues that there would be no real effect on employment. More expensive areas do have slightly higher employment rates but these differences are very small. Since people commute to work - either by public transport or car - the only effect of moving tenants is reducing time spent travelling and travel costs.
Responding to the report, David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said:
"The Policy Exchange's report rightly recognises that we have a huge shortage of homes and urgently need to start building more. And part of that solution is that housing associations should be able to take advantage of the value of their properties in different ways.
"However, the idea of selling off social housing in 'high value' areas to build more in cheaper areas is fundamentally flawed. It could effectively cleanse many towns of hard working people who simply can not afford the high prices of buying or renting privately.
"The report also ignores the fact that there is not the mortgage availability or market for people to buy these homes.
"We absolutely agree that housing associations need more flexibility over how they best use their properties, but as independent businesses they cannot, and should not, be forced to sell off their assets.
"The answer is building more homes and the flexibility to take an imaginative approach - this might sometimes mean selling some of their higher cost properties, or it might involve taking advantage of the value of those properties to innovatively raise finance."
To download the report click here.
