Making Housing more Affordable E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Real Estate Issues
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 552

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The movement away from traditional rented approaches to meeting the housing needs of those on modest incomes has taken on new momentum in the latest economic cycle. This book answers some of the questions around affordable housing and low cost home ownership, and whether these intermediate tenures have the potential to play a longer term role in achieving sustainable housing markets. The editors clarify the principles on which the development of affordable housing and intermediate tenures has been based; analyse the policy instruments used to implement these ideas; and make a preliminary assessment of their longer tem value to households and governments alike. Making Housing More Affordable: the role of intermediate tenures brings together an evidence base for researchers and policy makers as they assess past experience and work to understand future options. The book draws mainly on experience of the intermediate housing market in England but also on examples of policies that have been implemented across the world. It clarifies both the challenges and the achievements of governments in providing a well operating intermediate market that can help meet the fundamental goal of 'a decent home for every household at a price within their means'. The first section outlines the principles and practice of intermediate housing and examines the instruments and mechanisms by which it has been provided internationally. The next section estimates who might benefit from being in intermediate housing and projects the take-up of different products in the future. Section III examines the supply side and Section IV introduces some case studies of who gets what. The final section looks at how effectively the intermediate market operates over the economic cycle.

Leseprobe

Contents

Contributors

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Chapter 1 : Introduction

Explaining the title

The context: where does intermediate housing fit in?

Understanding the issues

The structure of the book

Conclusions

Section A: What is intermediate housing?

Chapter 2 : Intermediate housing tenure – principles and practice

What is intermediate housing?

Locating intermediate housing on a spectrum

Rationale for intermediate tenures for the household

Rationale for intermediate tenures for government and society

How do specific schemes fit the typology?

Using the typology: a better range of options?

Chapter 3 : International experience

Introduction

International definitions of the intermediate market

Types of policy

Supply-side versus demand-side measures

Supply-side measures

Demand-side measures

Regulatory and contractual measures

Assignment and eligibility

Funding mechanisms

Conclusions

Notes

Section B: Measuring the problem

Chapter 4 : Methods for estimating need for intermediate housing

Wilcox’s measure of affordability

The Bramley approach

The GLA study

The Holmans approach

New households and their incomes

Income range for intermediate housing

Housing tenure of households within the income range for intermediate housing

Proportions of new households who would want intermediate housing

Sub-regional estimates of need for intermediate housing

Taking account of future changes in incomes and house prices

Recycling intermediate housing

Conclusions

Chapter 5 : Modelling the take-up of low-cost home ownership

General principles of tenure-choice modelling

Modelling LCHO in England

Commentary and critique

Analytic strategies for LCHO policies

Section C: Securing intermediate housing

Chapter 6 : Intermediate housing and the planning system

Introduction

The policy and legal framework

The scale of planning contributions to affordable housing

The numbers of affordable homes secured through planning gain

The increasing role of intermediate housing

Has the policy been effective?

Reforms of the planning gain system

Looking forward

Postscript

Note

Chapter 7 : Securing key worker housing through the planning system

Introduction

Employment and household growth in Cambridge: the context

Cambridge affordable housing policies

The delivery of key worker housing for the health sector

Conclusions

Notes

Section D: Who benefits from intermediate housing?

Chapter 8 : Different tenures, different households?

Who actually takes up intermediate housing?

The attributes of properties purchased

Affordability

Housing costs

What happened after the downturn?

Conclusions

Chapter 9 : Targeting groups: key workers’ needs and aspirations

Introduction

Who are key workers, and what is the rationale for providing targeted support to them?

The case of London

Findings of research into key worker housing needs in London

Conclusions

Notes

Chapter 10 : Shared ownership: Does it satisfy government and household objectives?

Introduction

Research Methods

Policy objectives

Households’ objectives

Does shared ownership meet its policy objectives?

Are households’ objectives met?

Conclusions

Notes

Chapter 11 : Working with government policy in the East of England: a case study of implementation

Introduction

The driver

The problems

Supply

Demand for homebuy products

The proposed solutions

Baffled by innovation?

Conclusions

Notes

Section E: Intermediate housing and the economy

Chapter 12 : Intermediate housing products and the housing cycle

The Homebuy product and the housing cycle

The Homebuy scheme in wales

The administration of homebuy in wales

Who was the Homebuy scheme for?

The housing market cycle: house prices and earnings

The changing characteristics of Homebuyers over the 10-year period

Differences between urban, metropolitan and rural homebuy purchasers

Conclusions

Notes

Chapter 13 : The impact of the economic downturn on low-cost home ownership in the UK

Introduction

The research

The nature of the downturn in the UK

LCHO in the downturn

Differences in regional markets for HA shared ownership

New market-based intermediate products

Competition with new private developer shared equity products

HA responses to uncertainty and falling sales

Changes to purchasers of HA shared ownership

Mortgage finance problems

The HA LCHO property pipeline

Conclusions

Chapter 14 : Conclusions

Introduction

Is intermediate housing successful in its own terms?

Achieving core objectives

Has the wider range of objectives been achieved?

Looking forward: learning from experience in England

Learning from international experience

Lessons for the future

Appendix 1 The products

Appendix 2 Definitions of intermediate housing for use in negotiating planning obligations

References

Index

This edition first published 2010

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Making housing more affordable : the role of intermediate tenures/edited by Sarah Monk, Christine Whitehead.

p. cm. — (Real estate issues)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-4714-9 (hardback: alk. paper)

1. Low income housing—Great Britain. I. Monk, Sarah. II. Whitehead, Christine

HD7287.96.G7M35 2010

363.5’820941—dc22

2010018326

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is the mark of property professionalism worldwide, promoting best practice, regulation and consumer protection for business and the community. It is the home of property related knowledge and is an impartial advisor to governments and global organisations. It is committed to the promotion of research in support of the efficient and effective operation of land and property markets worldwide.

Real Estate Issues

Series Managing EditorsStephen BrownHead of Research, Royal Institution of Chartered SurveyorsJohn HenneberryDepartment of Town & Regional Planning, University of SheffieldK.W. ChauChair Professor, Department of Real Estate and Construction, The University of Hong KongElaine WorzalaProfessor, Director of the Accelerated MSRE, Edward St. John Department of Real Estate, Johns Hopkins University

Real Estate Issues is an international book series presenting the latest thinking into how real estate markets operate. The books have a strong theoretical basis – providing the underpinning for the development of new ideas.

The books are inclusive in nature, drawing both upon established techniques for real estate market analysis and on those from other academic disciplines as appropriate. The series embraces a comparative approach, allowing theory and practice to be put forward and tested for their applicability and relevance to the understanding of new situations. It does not seek to impose solutions, but rather provides a more effective means by which solutions can be found. It will not make any presumptions as to the importance of real estate markets but will uncover and present, through the clarity of the thinking, the real significance of the operation of real estate markets.

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Contributors

Gemma Burgess received her PhD from the University of Cambridge and is now a Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the delivery of affordable housing through the planning system; issues relating to gender equality, housing and planning; and housing and ageing. She has recently been researching the impact of new gender equality legislation on planning policy and practice and the relationship between domestic violence and homelessness. Other recent research has focused on the intermediate housing market and the delivery of affordable housing through the planning system, particularly on the low-cost home ownership sector.

Youngha Cho received her PhD from LSE and worked at the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research for a number of years. She is now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Real Estate and Construction, Oxford Brookes University. Her research interests include micro analysis of housing markets and the house building industry, affordability issues, intermediate housing tenure and residential mobility. She continues to extend her expertise into other countries such as USA and Singapore, and has recently carried out an international research project funded by the Korea National Housing Corporation. She has been working with several institutions in South Korea and Asian countries as a visiting fellow in the Research Institute for Human Settlement (KRIHS) since 2005.

Anna Clarke is a Research Associate with the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research. Her research interests include housing need, homelessness, demand for social housing and low-cost home ownership. Her recent works include work on future demand and aspirations for affordable housing, work on domestic violence and homelessness legislation, and an evaluation of Emmaus Communities. She is currently involved in a nationwide evaluation of enhanced Housing Options schemes, which aim to improve the housing options of those seeking social housing. She is also writing a book on the history of homelessness in Cambridge.

Tony Crook ADH (Tony) Crook is Former Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Sheffield and Professor of Housing. In addition to maintaining an active research programme, especially on planning obligations and on the supply side of the private rented sector, he is also active in the worlds of policy and practice, having served and chaired boards of several housing organisations. Currently he is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Shelter and a Trustee of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, a Board member of the National Tenant Voice and of the Orbit Housing Group.

Alex Fenton is a Researcher at the University of Cambridge. He has carried out research on family life in urban areas, the regeneration of social housing estates and the long-term trajectory of deprived neighbourhoods. He has a particular interest in novel uses for administrative and census data in the analysis of housing policy, including regeneration, low-cost home ownership, and race and ethnicity.

Alan Holmans was formerly Chief Housing Economist in the Department of the Environment. He was subsequently a Research Associate with the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research until he retired in August 2009. He continues to work with the Centre particularly on issues associated with his specialist areas of household formation and household projections, methods of estimating future demand and need for housing, and house values.

Michael Jones After reading architecture at the University of Cambridge, Michael worked in local government housing and construction departments at Senior and Chief Officer level, before returning to Cambridge to join the Centre. Since then, he has worked on a wide variety of research projects mainly in the context of social housing and housing finance, including the project A Review of Low Cost Home Ownership Policies in Wales, for Welsh Assembly Government, upon which his chapter is based. He has also been involved in a range of projects relating to planning in Cambridge and chairs a London-based ALMO.

Sarah Monk is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Land Economy and Deputy Director of the Centre for Housing and Planning Research. She is particularly interested in the relationship between the planning system and the provision of housing, including estimating future housing requirements and the use of Section 106 to secure additional affordable housing. She retains an interest in housing and labour markets, and has more recently been involved in a number of literature reviews – housing supply and affordability, urban renaissance, the capacity of the planning system to deliver the government’s housing targets, reducing carbon emissions from housing, and the economic and social impacts of housing investment – as well as several large-scale policy evaluations.

Nicky Morrison is a Lecturer in Housing and Urban Planning at the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge and an Associate of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research. She is a Director of Cambridge City Centre Partnership Ltd and a Board Member of a Cambridge-based housing association. She teaches courses on housing and urban policy and planning. She has worked with the Centre for many years, specialising in planning for housing and intermediate markets and key worker issues. Her interests in urban form and regeneration, especially the potential for compact cities, have involved collaboration with colleagues in the European Union as well as within the UK.

Kathleen Scanlon is a Researcher at LSE London, a research group within the London School of Economics. She specialises in urban and housing issues, particularly housing finance and social housing. She recently returned to London after three years in Copenhagen, where she was a Guest Researcher at the Danish State Building Research Institute. She co-edited volumes I and II of Social Housing in Europe. Other recent publications include Mortgage Product Innovation in Advanced Economies: More Choice, More Risk (with Jens Lunde and Christine Whitehead), which appeared in the European Journal of Housing Policy in June 2008.

Christine Whitehead has been Director of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research since its inception. She is also Professor in Housing in the Department of Economic, at the London School of Economics. She is an internationally respected applied economist whose research is well known in both academic and policy circles. Major themes in her recent research include analyses of the relationship between planning and housing, notably with respect to the S106 policy; housing affordability and forecasting; the role and financing of social housing; shared equity and shared ownership; and the application of economic concepts and techniques, including cost-effectiveness and cost–benefit analysis to questions of public resource allocation.

Judith Yates is currently an Honorary Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Sydney, after a career in academia, interrupted by occasional secondment to the Australian government to work on its National Housing Strategy and to serve on an Inquiry into Local Government Finance. Her research interests are in the fields of housing economics, finance and policy. She was appointed to the newly formed National Housing Supply Council in 2008. In 2009, she was given an award for her outstanding contribution to housing research by the Australian Housing Research Conference.

Foreword

If timing is the key to achieving policy relevance, then this book is a sure-fire success. With home ownership remaining stubbornly beyond the reach of most new home seekers and social housing increasingly confined to the poorest and most vulnerable, there is intense interest in how to house Middle Britain’s ordinary new households on middling incomes.

More and more younger people now remain with their parents into their 30s, postpone starting a family and suffer the anxieties of not knowing when, or if, they will settle in a home of their choosing.

The private rented sector grew by 1 million homes in the 2000s, often with right-to-buy purchasers outbidding first-time buyers. But private renting does not offer the security needed by those who want stability for family life, who want to settle their children in local schools and put down roots in an area. The physical conditions in privately rented property remain poor; and while sharing a flat may be fine for the young and mobile, the need for space – and even a small garden – becomes more urgent as time goes by. As tenants, occupiers have neither the independence to put their own time and money into improving their home nor the opportunity to build up a debt-free asset for their later years. So the search is on for something better to fill that middle ground: the quest for suitable ‘intermediate’ housing has become a major priority.

This book, edited by Sarah Monk and Christine Whitehead, makes a major contribution in analysing the problem and defining the key questions for policy makers. It reports on an impressive body of research over the years much of which has been supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. They show how the range of intermediate housing initiatives over the last 40 years have achieved modest positive results but that policies can suffer from pursuing too many – potentially conflicting – objectives simultaneously.

The motivation of housing associations – the providers of most intermediate housing – has often been to make profits that can be ploughed back into rented housing: this strategy has proved a risky one with the arrival of the credit crunch and has helped put the intermediate market at risk at the current time.

Even so, I see compelling reasons why the housing association sector could take this story forward and significantly extend its offer to embrace households in work and on average earnings, alongside those without jobs and with the lowest incomes:

First, providing this mix of occupiers in all new developments built by ‘registered providers’ of social housing removes the stigma – which can ruin life chances – of living in ‘social housing ghettos’.

Second, at a time of public spending constraints, provision of intermediate housing produces many more homes for a given level of public subsidy: this increases overall supply and addresses the shortages that remain the underlying cause of the UK’s housing problems.

Third, the different forms of part ownership provide a way of obtaining a higher contribution from occupiers who are not in poverty which can be reinvested immediately: they may be paying more than their tenant neighbour but this is not a penalty for achieving a reasonable income since they gain a comparable benefit with a foot on the ownership ladder.

And I would add that part ownership options can also mean salvation for struggling buyers who face financial difficulties: this can prevent the catastrophe of homelessness through the ‘flexible tenure’ route of enabling owners to ‘staircase down’.

The alternative to housing associations– talked about but not yet a reality – is a private rented sector supported by the major institutional investor. Since these companies want a long-term investment that will produce a steady income stream, rather than capital gains, they can offer greater security to the occupier as well as the prospect of professional, good quality management.

While at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, I attempted to persuade the City institutions that residential lettings could prove a sound investment. We built City-centre Apartments for Single People at Affordable Rents (CASPAR projects) in downtown Leeds and Birmingham. We showed that open-market renting to young, mobile, singles could produce decent returns. But market conditions then favoured individual buy-to-let investors who were particularly attracted by likely capital gains. Today the institutions see yields from market renting in a more favourable light although not without support: e.g. AVIVA, the big insurance company, is working with the Homes and Communities Agency to invest, perhaps, £500 million over the next five years.

Meanwhile, some housing associations are equipped to accept the risks of market renting to generate profits for other activity, just as many took on the role of building for market sales. They could be exemplars for the pension funds and insurance companies and have a role in supporting the growth of the new-look, unsubsidised rental market, acting as the agencies – for development and for ongoing management – for those institutional investors.

This text helps to clarify the range of options, with and without direct subsidy, that could be used to fill the gap between social rented and market housing. It discusses why, even in uncertain times, a form of owner-occupation may be best for many types of households. But it also examines the complexity of real-world options and the pitfalls faced by government.

On these – and so many other – aspects of the intermediate housing debate, this book sheds important light. I conclude with congratulations to the authors: their book will raise the quality of discussion on this hugely important topic at exactly the moment when politicians and practitioners need the evidence and the analysis to decide where next to go with tomorrow’s ‘intermediate housing’.

Lord Richard Best, OBE

Chair of the Local Government Association

Acknowledgements

Gemma Burgess would like to thank the housing associations, developers, lenders and other stakeholders interviewed for the research on which Chapter 13 is based.

Youngha Cho and Christine Whitehead would like to thank the Statistics Department of Oxford Brookes University for their help and expertise in interpreting the modelling results.

Anna Clarke wishes to thank the shared owners who completed the surveys and telephone interviews for her research underpinning Chapter 10.

Tony Crook and Christine Whitehead wish to acknowledge the many colleagues at both Cambridge and Sheffield who have collaborated with them on a large series of projects on planning gain and affordable housing. Much of the work cited and discussed in Chapter 6 is drawn from papers and reports written with these collaborators and their involvement in the current work is gratefully acknowledged.

Alex Fenton would like to thank the Department for Communities and Local Government for commissioning the research on which Chapter 5 is based, and Youngha Cho for the econometric modelling.

Sarah Monk wishes to thank the steering group for the East of England work whose members provided information on the HomeBuy schemes in the region.

Kath Scanlon wishes to thank Judy Yates and Vivienne Milligan of the University of New South Wales for their help with Chapter 3 and Martin Crookshank and Ben Castell of Llewelyn Davies for their input to the key worker research in London (Chapter 9).

The editors wish to thank all the authors for their impressive contributions and all those who have helped bring the book to completion (including long suffering partners).

Glossary

Affordable housing

The UK government defines affordable housing as including both social rented housing provided by local authorities and housing associations, and low-cost home ownership usually provided through housing associations but recently (2009) extended to include newly built housing provided by private developers.

Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)

This is a new instrument for securing a developer contribution towards the costs of infrastructure provision. It has been enabled by legislation but no guidelines on how it will work in practice have yet been issued (2009). It could operate as a roof tax (see below).

Community land trust

A local community-controlled non-profit organisation set up to own and manage land and other assets in perpetuity for the benefit of the community. Assets may include affordable housing, agricultural facilities, commercial outlets or community facilities. A house purchaser may buy a proportion of the asset value (e.g. just the building) with constraints on resale (first refusal to the trust).

Cost renting (also known as intermediate renting)

Property let at sub-market rents set so that costs are just covered, with no profit element. At the present time, cost renting involves rents at below 80 per cent of market value.

Deed restricted homes

Homes subject to legal covenants that bind current and future owners. In the context of intermediate housing, deed restrictions can oblige the owners to sell or rent the home only to eligible intermediate households.

Do-it-yourself shared ownership

Household finds a property on the open market which is then purchased on a shared ownership basis with a housing association buying the other share. The government began to phase this out in the late 1990s.

HomeBuy and later Open Market HomeBuy

Purchaser finds a property on the open market and buys 75 per cent of the home with a conventional mortgage and obtains a 25 per cent interest-free equity loan repayable on sale. The equity loan mortgagee receives 25 per cent of any capital gain. Similar schemes included the Starter Home Initiative and Key Worker Living (aimed at public-sector groups such as teachers, nurses and police). Now replaced by schemes given below.

HomeBuy Direct

This scheme for new-build homes has been introduced to help private developers suffering from a loss of sales in the recession. Purchasers receive a 30 per cent equity loan part provided by government and part by the developer that is interest-free for the first five years.

Housing association

A not-for-profit housing provider that is regulated by a government agency (the Tenant Services Agency, formerly the Housing Corporation). Also termed affordable housing provider (AHP).

Intermediate housing/intermediate market

This term includes both low-cost home ownership and sub-market renting, also termed intermediate renting, where prices and rents are above social rents but below private-sector rents and market prices.

Intermediate renting

Property let at sub-market rents, usually 75–80 per cent of the market rent, often with zero profit but also at below market with some profit for the landlord. See also cost renting.

Key workers

Normally defined as providers of essential local (usually public) services whose pay cannot be adjusted to reflect variations in the local cost of living – particularly in the cost of housing. Essentially public-sector workers on national pay scales; most commonly teachers, nurses and police officers but who is included can vary between authorities.

Key Worker Initiative

This involved direct grants to particular groups of workers in specific parts of the country of between £10,000 and £20,000. It was a short-lived scheme and was replaced by Key Worker Living.

Key Worker Living

This is a package of assistance with house purchase aimed at key workers, notably police, nurses and teachers, including equity loans of up to £50,000 (plus loans of up to £100,000 for some teachers in London) and shared ownership. It also includes intermediate rent.

Limited (or zero) equity cooperatives

Housing cooperatives with contracts or covenants containing restrictions on resale values, which ensure that housing remains affordable into the future. Usually residents collectively own the building, rather than each member owning their own flat or apartment.

Low-cost home ownership

This term refers to a range of products aimed at low-income purchasers who cannot afford to access home ownership without some form of subsidy. The products include both shared equity and shared ownership. In England these have been packaged as elements of HomeBuy.

Material considerations

The factors to be taken into account by local planning authorities when determining planning permission (consent) for development. If these factors are not forthcoming the application can be refused. Affordable housing is a material consideration.

MyChoice HomeBuy

The purchaser finds a home on the open market and buys 50 per cent with a conventional mortgage and receives a 50 per cent government loan with a 1.75 per cent interest charge. The scheme was introduced in 2008 and discontinued in 2009 because of funding problems.

New Build HomeBuy

A low-cost home ownership scheme whereby, on a new build home, the purchaser buys a share of 25 per cent or more, purchases the rest with a traditional mortgage and pays up to 3 per cent as a charge or ‘rent’ on the rest of the equity owned by the housing association. It replaced shared ownership (see below).

OwnHome HomeBuy

A partnership between a housing association and a bank whereby purchaser finds a home on the open market and buys 60 per cent with a conventional mortgage and the housing association provides a 40 per cent equity loan that is interest-free for the first five years after which interest gradually rises to 3.75 per cent after 11 years. Introduced in 2008, discontinued in 2009 because of funding problems.

Planning obligations (or ‘S106 agreements’) are private agreements negotiated, usually in the context of planning applications, between local planning authorities and persons with an interest in a piece of land, and intended to make acceptable development which would otherwise be unacceptable in planning terms. This includes affordable housing as it has the status of a material consideration.

Rent to HomeBuy

A pilot scheme introduced in response to recession. The tenant pays intermediate rent – no more than 80 per cent of current market rent on a new-build home – for up to five years. The tenant may purchase equity in the property at any time but is expected to complete their purchase within the five-year time frame.

Right to Buy

Under the Right to Buy, some 2 million local authority-owned units have been transferred at a discount to sitting tenants. Originally, the discount was an increasing proportion of the price depending on length of tenancy. The discounts have now been capped and reduced to as low as £16,000 in some areas – making it worth very little in the context of high priced areas.

Right to Acquire gives similar rights to some housing association tenants, depending on when the house was built, how it was financed and whether or not the association is a charity (charities were exempt).

Section 106 (S106) agreement

Section 106 of the Town and County Planning Act 1990 enables local planning authorities to negotiate obligations in cash or in kind from developers to mitigate the impact of development, including making contributions towards necessary infrastructure and help meet a community’s need for affordable housing. Planning Policy Statement 3 on Housing states that affordable housing includes social rent and low-cost home ownership but not low-cost market housing, unless the price is discounted. The developer contribution to affordable housing can take the form of free or cheap land, cheap dwellings or a financial contribution.

Shared ownership

The original intermediate market scheme. Available on specific new-build homes and those that have since come up for resale. Buyers purchase a share (usually between 25 and 75 per cent) with a mortgage and the remaining share is owned by a housing association charging a regulated rent. Buyers usually have the right to increase the share purchased to a maximum of 100 per cent.

Shared equity

Most commonly available on existing open market property, this term refers to a range of products that effectively reduce the down payment element of house purchase by providing an equity loan in addition to a traditional mortgage. Typically the loan is between 15 and 30 per cent of the value. Sometimes interest is paid on the equity loan, sometimes not, but in all cases the loan is repaid on resale of the property if it has not been paid back earlier. See also HomeBuy Direct, a shared equity scheme on specified newly built property.

Shared ownership for the elderly

This was previously called leasehold schemes for the elderly (LSE) and they often involve specially adapted housing.

Social HomeBuy

For social tenants only. Social tenants can buy a minimum of 25 per cent share in their home at a discount of £9,000–16,000 depending on location. They can also buy outright as in Right to Buy/Acquire. Again, given the small discount it is worth very little in high-priced areas.

Social rented housing

Housing provided by local authorities and housing associations for rent at below-market rents. Since the mid-1990s, these rents have been regulated in line with capital values and local incomes.

Staircasing

The purchase of additional shares in a shared ownership property. Thus for example a shared owner may staircase up to 100 per cent ownership. Staircasing down is also sometimes used to denote the sale of shares to the housing association, e.g. if the purchaser is struggling to meet housing costs.

Starter Home Initiative

A low-cost home ownership scheme announced in April 2000 and introduced in two rounds in 2001 and 2002. Targeted at key workers defined as health workers, teachers, police and ‘others’, including social workers, cleaners and support workers, and bus drivers in London. Replaced by Key Worker Living in 2004.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Sarah Monk and Christine Whitehead

Shared ownership, low-cost home ownership, equity loans for first-time buyers, key worker housing; cost renting – these buzzwords have been around in the UK for several years now, along with deed restricted homes, limited or zero equity cooperatives, community land trusts in the USA and equivalent terms across the world. Equally the term affordable housing – as distinct from local authority, municipal and even social housing – has taken on new meaning in both policy and analysis over the past decade. All these terms relate to the movement away from traditional rented approaches to meeting the housing needs of those on modest incomes – a movement that began in the inflation-ridden 1970s but has taken on new momentum in the latest economic cycle.