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Thursday 5 November 2026
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Make housing affordable
Look at the policies that could reduce housing costs and make secure homes easier to access.
In a nutshell
- A home should leave you enough money to live on, and enough security to plan your life.
- Making that possible means building more of the right homes, improving renting, and looking at how land and housing are owned and taxed.
- No single policy can do it all. People need help now, alongside changes that make housing more affordable over time.
What makes a home affordable?
Housing affordability is about more than the asking price. A cheaper home may still be out of reach if you can't save the deposit, afford the bills, or rely on being able to stay.
Affordable
After rent or mortgage payments, bills and essential charges, you have enough left for food, transport, family life and some savings.
Secure
You can put down roots without constantly worrying about an unaffordable rent increase or having to leave at short notice.
Suitable
Your home is safe, warm and big enough, meets your access needs, and lets you reach work, schools and the people you depend on.
Owning a home can offer stability and a way to build wealth. But a successful housing system also needs to work for people who rent, whether by choice or necessity.
Housing policy differs across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This page explores policy choices, using mainly English examples, rather than describing a single set of UK rules.
A discount doesn't always mean affordable
Imagine a household taking home £2,400 a month. A local flat rents for £1,500. Even a 20% discount leaves a £1,200 rent: half the household's take-home income, before bills.
In England, the housing category called Affordable Rent generally allows rents of up to 80% of market rent, including service charges. Social Rent uses a different formula involving local earnings and property values, and is usually lower. [1]
The household figures are illustrative. The important question is what people can afford on their income, not just whether the rent is below the market rate.
Why is housing so expensive?
Several pressures overlap, and their importance varies from place to place.
Too few suitable homes
Where homes are scarce relative to demand, people compete for what's available. Planning delays, infrastructure gaps and construction costs can all hold back building.
Unequal buying power
Prices reflect what buyers can pay, including savings, family wealth and access to borrowing. Someone relying on wages alone may struggle to compete.
Too few alternatives
If you can't buy and can't access a social home, private renting may be your only option. That leaves little room to negotiate or walk away.
More homes can ease pressure on prices and rents, but new market housing won't automatically meet every household's needs. Location, rent levels, accessibility and who gets access all matter. The OECD treats supply, social housing and rental policy as connected parts of the problem. [2]
Build more homes people can actually afford
That means looking at what gets built, where it goes, and who builds it.
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Expand and protect social housing
The idea
Fund councils and housing associations to build more homes for social rent, maintain existing homes, and prevent sales or demolitions from steadily shrinking the supply.
Why it might help
It provides a lasting option for households the market doesn't serve, with rents below market levels and greater stability.
The hard question
How much public funding is needed, how should homes be allocated fairly, and how do we pay for maintenance as well as construction?
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Make planning clearer and fund the infrastructure
The idea
Resource planning teams properly, identify suitable sites in advance, and coordinate homes with transport, water, schools and healthcare.
Why it might help
More predictable decisions and usable sites make it easier to build where people need homes, including smaller builders who struggle with long delays.
The hard question
How do we speed up delivery while protecting nature, avoiding flood risk and giving communities a meaningful say?
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Widen who can build
The idea
Make room for smaller builders, councils, housing associations and self-build projects, with a mix of homes for sale and rent.
Why it might help
Delivery would depend less on one business model. The CMA found that developers selling homes have incentives to build at a pace that sustains selling prices. [3]
The hard question
Can new providers get land, finance and skilled workers, and can public building programmes keep going through economic downturns?
Who gets the value of the land?
Building a home costs money. So does buying the land underneath it. When planning permission or a new transport link makes land more valuable, who should benefit?
Share the uplift
Use some of the increase in land value to pay for social homes, transport and other local services. This is often called land value capture.
Clear requirements set before land is bought can help buyers price those contributions into their offers. The balance matters: demands that make a project unworkable can stop it being built. [4]
Keep homes affordable over time
Support community land trusts and housing co-operatives, with rules designed to keep homes affordable for future residents as well as the first occupants.
Public land, start-up funding and practical advice could help more groups get started. These projects still need finance, capable management and fair access rules. [5]
Make renting a secure way to live
People shouldn't have to buy a home before they can feel settled. Rental policy needs to protect residents while keeping decent homes available.
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Give tenants greater stability
The idea
Limit arbitrary evictions, require reasonable notice, and provide an accessible way to challenge unfair treatment or unresolved repairs.
Why it might help
Families could stay near schools and support networks, and tenants could report problems with less fear of losing their home.
The hard question
How do we provide timely, fair decisions when landlords genuinely need possession or tenants face eviction? Rights need funded enforcement and dispute resolution.
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Limit sudden rent increases
The idea
Regulate how often rents can rise, how much notice is needed, and potentially the size of increases during a tenancy.
Why it might help
Predictable increases make budgeting easier and can protect existing tenants from being priced out of their homes.
The hard question
If permitted rents fall too far behind costs or alternatives, could landlords reduce maintenance, stop investing or leave the rental market?
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Help people meet the rent and get through the door
The idea
Keep housing support responsive to local rents, help with deposits, and tackle unfair barriers for applicants on low incomes or without a family guarantor.
Why it might help
It can prevent an immediate shortfall or lack of savings from turning into homelessness, even while new homes are being built.
The hard question
How do we make support adequate without relying indefinitely on public payments to meet high rents? It needs to sit alongside a larger affordable supply.
Rent controls aren't all the same
A permanent rent freeze, a cap on increases during a tenancy, and a limit on the starting rent are different policies. Rules on new buildings, maintenance costs and changes of tenant also affect the outcome.
A study of San Francisco's rent-control expansion found that it helped covered tenants stay, but also prompted affected landlords to reduce rental supply, including by selling to owner-occupiers. That is evidence of a real trade-off, not a prediction that every system will produce the same result. [6]
Any proposal should be judged by what happens to existing tenants, people searching for a home, housing quality and future supply.
Make better use of the homes we already have
New construction is only part of the picture. Some measures can help particular places sooner.
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Bring long-term empty homes back into use
Combine repair support and work with owners with proportionate action where homes are deliberately left unused. Some properties need major repairs or have unresolved ownership issues, so a higher tax bill alone won't solve every case. [7]
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Manage second homes and holiday lets where pressure is greatest
Local registration, planning controls or tax measures could help keep more homes available to permanent residents in places where short lets and second homes take a substantial share of supply.
The effect will vary by area. Policy needs to weigh residents' housing needs against tourism livelihoods and occasional home-sharing. These measures cannot replace a wider housing strategy. [8]
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Make moving to a suitable home easier
Provide attractive, accessible smaller homes and practical moving support for people who want to downsize. The aim should be to create good choices, rather than pressure people to leave a home and community they value.
Help buyers without simply pushing prices up
A deposit grant, tax break or larger mortgage can help an individual buy. But if many buyers get more purchasing power while the number of homes barely changes, part of that help can end up in higher prices.
Target help carefully
Judge buyer support by whether it reaches people who otherwise couldn't buy, what extra housing it delivers, and what happens to prices.
The National Audit Office's 2019 review of Help to Buy found that the scheme increased ownership and supply, but many buyers could have bought without it. [9]
Look at property taxes too
One option is to rely less on taxes charged when people move and more on regularly updated property or land values, with protection for people on low incomes.
This could make moving easier and change the incentives around ownership. It would create winners and losers, so a gradual transition and payment deferrals may be needed. [10]
Shared ownership also needs a clear explanation of the full cost: mortgage payments, rent on the remaining share, service charges, repairs and the cost of buying further shares. A smaller initial deposit doesn't tell the whole story.
Our Taxing wealth and income fairly explainer looks at the wider choices around property and wealth.
A lower rent isn't the whole answer
A housing policy can look successful on paper while leaving people cold, isolated or without a suitable home.
Lower running costs
Improve insulation and heating, alongside ventilation and protection from overheating. Target help at households least able to pay for upgrades. [11]
Transparent service and estate charges matter too: a manageable headline payment can hide expensive extras.
Homes for different needs
Plan for disabled people, older residents, larger families and people who need support. Include accessible homes near everyday services, rather than treating adaptations as an afterthought.
Places people can live well
Connect housing with jobs, public transport, schools and green space. A lower rent far from everything may be offset by travel costs and time away from family.
Prevent homelessness, not just manage it
People facing the loss of their home can't wait for a building programme to finish.
- Intervene early: offer advice, mediation and targeted help with arrears before a housing problem becomes an eviction.
- Plan safe routes into housing: help people leaving care, hospital or prison, and people escaping domestic abuse, secure somewhere suitable to live.
- Provide lasting support where it's needed: approaches such as Housing First give people with complex needs a settled home alongside flexible support, rather than requiring them to resolve every other difficulty first. England's pilots have been independently evaluated. [12]
Emergency accommodation remains necessary, but success should mean more people moving into stable homes and fewer reaching crisis in the first place.
What are the challenges?
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Paying for it and getting it built
The problem
Public homes and infrastructure need money, land and skilled workers. Announcing a target doesn't provide any of those.
A possible fix
Set out multi-year funding, train the workforce and publish delivery plans that include repairs and running costs. Count completed, usable homes rather than promises.
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Bringing communities with you
The problem
Residents may reasonably worry about crowded services, poor design and losing valued places. People priced out of the area may have less say.
A possible fix
Involve both groups early, make infrastructure commitments credible, and show clearly who will be able to afford the new homes.
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Protecting renters when the market changes
The problem
If landlords sell, the homes don't disappear, but they may no longer be available to rent. That can help some buyers while making life harder for remaining tenants.
A possible fix
Track rental availability as well as ownership, phase reforms carefully, and expand social and other long-term rental options alongside stronger protections.
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Improving affordability without a damaging crash
The problem
Rapid price falls can leave recent buyers owing more than their home is worth. But endlessly rising prices make access harder for the next generation.
A possible fix
Aim for sustained improvement relative to incomes, with more affordable options and sensible lending. That doesn't require nominal prices to fall everywhere, but it does challenge the expectation of ever-rising housing wealth.
How would we know it's working?
Housebuilding totals matter, but they aren't enough. A useful scorecard would also ask:
- Are lower- and middle-income households spending less of their take-home income on housing?
- Are deposits and mortgage payments becoming more manageable for first-time buyers?
- Are social rented homes increasing after sales, demolitions and conversions are counted?
- Are fewer people homeless, overcrowded or stuck in temporary accommodation?
- Are homes healthier, more accessible and cheaper to run, and can renters stay for longer when they want to?
These measures should be checked locally and across different incomes, ages and household types. A better national average can hide people being left behind.
The arguments at a glance
The case for change
- More income left for everyday life and savings
- Greater stability for families and communities
- Less dependence on inherited wealth to access a decent home
- Less homelessness and fewer households living in unsuitable conditions
The risks to manage
- Large upfront costs and limited construction capacity
- Pressure on infrastructure, nature and existing communities
- Poorly designed controls or taxes reducing rental investment
- Some owners losing wealth as affordability improves
On balance
Making housing affordable takes more than one policy. More homes, a stronger social housing sector, secure renting and lower running costs each address a different part of the problem.
There is a real tension between homes as places to live and homes as investments expected to keep rising in value. A fair transition needs to recognise both, without leaving people permanently priced out.
The test is practical: can more people get a decent home, afford to live there, and feel confident enough to build a life?
Sources and further reading
These sources explain the evidence and policy mechanisms discussed above. The suggested mix of measures is a synthesis, rather than a programme endorsed by every source.
- Government: policy statement on rents for social housing — the distinction between Social Rent and Affordable Rent in England.
- OECD: Promoting Housing Affordability — supply, social housing and support for households.
- Competition and Markets Authority: housebuilding market study, final report (2024) — planning, developers' incentives and alternative delivery models.
- Government: land value capture and funding delivery — using land value to support infrastructure and development.
- Government: community-led housing (2025) — community land trusts, co-operatives and local examples.
- Diamond, McQuade and Qian: The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality — evidence from San Francisco; outcomes depend on the policy and setting.
- House of Commons Library: Empty housing (England) — empty homes and options for bringing them back into use.
- House of Commons Library: The growth in short-term lettings in England — local housing pressures and regulatory choices.
- National Audit Office: Help to Buy progress review (2019) — additional supply, buyer access and targeting.
- OECD: Housing Taxation in OECD Countries (2022) — property taxes, moving costs and the risks of demand subsidies.
- Government: Warm Homes Plan — upgrading homes, energy bills and summer comfort.
- Government: Housing First pilot national evaluation reports — settled housing with support for people with complex needs.
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