Affordable Housing Insights

Welcome to our affordable housing insights. Now defining affordable housing is a tricky issue as there is no definitive definition of affordable housing in England. This is due to the ambiguity in the term ‘affordable’. In 2005/06 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) defined affordable housing as “subsidised housing that meets the needs of those who cannot afford secure decent housing on the open market either to rent or buy.”

However, a more general description is that the price is affordable to a particular household or group by analysis of housing costs, income levels and other factors. [1] We’ve pulled together our affordable housing insights section. This will look at the history of affordable housing. It will also our own insights based on our affordable housing search data.

Affordable housing data

To see which affordable housing schemes were more popular, research was conducted to find the statistics of affordable housing in England. We used a live table of data up to 2022 from gov.uk. [3] This data included housing which had been completed and started using the different types of affordable housing schemes that ranges from 1991 up to 2022. This dataset was comprehensive. It gave information of the region, location of the homes, who provided them, etc. To understand the categories of the dataset, we used the relevant data dictionary [4]. We also looked at the ‘Housing statistics and English Housing Survey glossary’. [2] Here we found that the Tenure “Affordable Home Ownership” represented Rent-to-Buy and shared ownership prior to 2014-15.

However, this dataset included no data on the Help to Buy scheme so, we merged the data from the “Help to Buy Tables: Data for figures in release document” [5] which included the completions from 2013 to 2023 but no starts. This is most likely due to the scheme ending in early 2023. After collecting all of this data, we analysed it thoroughly to gain valuable insights which are represented under the ‘Affordable homes data’ page.

MovingSoon’s goal

At MovingSoon, affordable housing is important to us as our goal is to be “the go-to place for affordable housing, by connecting qualified buyers and renters with affordable housing providers through our innovative property platform.” Therefore, the information presented here will help highlight the history behind the different types of affordable housing schemes, the benefits and the future prospects.