Housing associations in England sold a record number of social and affordable homes to private buyers in 2024-25, new research shows.
New research from the Local Councils Network (LCN) shows 5,250 homes were sold in 2024-25, an 89% increase in two years.
The figures, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, also highlight 25,000 social and affordable properties have been sold by housing associations since 2018-19.
Those sales are separate from homes sold through government schemes such as Right to Buy and Right to Acquire. Almost all were sold at market value, which LCN said councils could not ‘realistically match’.
Housing associations must tell the Regulator of Social Housing before they sell properties and the LCN said its analysis of those notifications showed ‘social rent stock is being sold off by housing associations at a faster rate than ever before’.
Despite acknowledging that homes may be sold for ‘legitimate reasons’, the organisation said there wasn’t a requirement for associations to reinvest the proceeds locally or in new social rent homes, meaning ‘many communities lose out’.
According to councils represented by LCN, social rent homes have been ‘disproportionately lost through sales by some housing associations’, while homes for affordable rent have been ‘relatively unaffected’.
Data from the Regulator of Social Housing shows housing associations added a net 2,864 social rent homes in 2024-25 – 7% of their overall net increase across all types of housing.
Other forms of tenure accounted for the remaining 93%, which LCN said were unaffordable for many people on low incomes.
News of the research comes as the Social Housing Bill prepares to have its third reading in Parliament next week. With this in mind, the LCN is calling for changes to protect existing social homes.
One of their proposals is a ‘statutory right of first refusal’, which it said would give social landlords the opportunity to buy homes at risk of being sold. A ‘rescue fund’ should also be set up to help providers meet full market prices.
Paul Harvey, leader of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and social housing spokesperson for LCN, said: ‘With 1.34m households on social housing waitlists and temporary accommodation numbers at a record high, every home lost results in more misery for people needing high-quality, secure housing and extra expense for the public sector.’
‘It cannot be right that some housing associations are selling homes in the parts of the country where they’re most needed and failing to replace them with homes nearby that are equally affordable,’ Cllr Harvey added. ‘It would be a disaster if the biggest social housing building programme in a generation was undermined by the loss of existing social homes.’
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