Affordable Housing - New Builds

RandomGuy87

With new builds having to give up so many homes to affordable housing, do these have to be agreed at planning stage or can/does the developer give a house up for affordable housing if they haven't had any luck in selling it?

RelievedSheff

They are agreed at planning stage.

[Deleted User]

Usually the scam is to build the unaffordable houses first, then the company set up just for this purpose goes bankrupt and the affordable ones never get built.

Racky_Roo

My friend lives in a big new build estate. After she had purchased, Barratt sold some houses (including her next door one) to a housing association for shared ownership. The additional ones sold are outside of the area on the estate designated for affordable housing

GixerKate

On the development I moved to, it was agreed up front which were the different types of housing, even the plan for the whole estate highlighted which were affordable housing and which weren't.

Silvertabby

This isn't meant to sound snobbish - just stating a fact...

The second and final phase of our estate was rubber stamped just a few weeks before the law changed, requiring that X % of new houses be 'affordable.  2 similar estates nearby are just a year or two newer, but have affordable housing areas.

Guess which houses sell faster and for more.

The lady who bought  my friend's house, around the corner, actually said that while she had absolutely nothing against council houses -  she grew up in one -  she now didn't want to pay  £300K  to live next door to one.

wjr4

Silvertabby said:

This isn't meant to sound snobbish - just stating a fact...

The second and final phase of our estate was rubber stamped just a few weeks before the law changed, requiring that X % of new houses be 'affordable.  2 similar estates nearby are just a year or two newer, but have affordable housing areas.

Guess which houses sell faster and for more.

The lady who bought  my friend's house, around the corner, actually said that while she had absolutely nothing against council houses -  she grew up in one -  she now didn't want to pay  £300K  to live next door to one.

I live next door to a council house and I’m in a shared ownership home, yet the neighbour I have who is council is a hell of a lot nicer than any of the stuck up people on the estate owning a £700k new build house. The neighbours I have who aren’t council or shared ownership are worse than the ones who are  

Racky_Roo

GixerKate said:

On the development I moved to, it was agreed up front which were the different types of housing, even the plan for the whole estate highlighted which were affordable housing and which weren't.

So was my friends. But the developers can sell to whoever they like and if houses aren't selling, they will sell to whoever will buy, this includes housing associations. There's nothing in the contracts to say affordable housing stays only in the areas highlighted

DE_612183

RandomGuy87 said:

With new builds having to give up so many homes to affordable housing, do these have to be agreed at planning stage or can/does the developer give a house up for affordable housing if they haven't had any luck in selling it?

I doubt very much that a developer will give a house up for AH which is to be sold on the open market, in my experience it's actually the other way round - AH homes usually have strict criteria ( person was born in area etc ) , and sometimes the Council cannot find enough people who qualify, so hand them back to the developer to go on open market.

I bought a AH back in 2000, there were 10 on the site but 4 actually ended up on the open market and sold at the full price - developer was well pleased.

UncleDisco

Interesting discussion.

As an aside, Affordable Housing providers typically pay Developers between 45% and 65% of Open Market Value per property (depending on tenure).  Whilst this should more than cover their land and build costs, it impacts their profits, and this is of course why they seek to minimise the planning obligation in the first place.

Deals regarding 'additional' affordable homes are usually a (last-resort) response to unsold 'standing stock' or changes in market conditions where the Developer has calculated that it is better for them to forgo the potential of 'jam-tomorrow' in return for the certainty of cash today.      

Noneforit999

We have a block of flats opposite us which are affordable housing as part of our new build development, they are owned by a housing association.

In hindsight, we should have thought about the position of our house/plot in relation to them before we reserved. Its not horrific by any stretch but the people living in them have changed several times throughout the years, most of them have been fine but we have had a few nightmare ones and being right opposite means the noise can be loud during the warmer months where windows have to be left open.