What is affordable housing?
- Affordable housing includes both social rented and intermediate housing.
- Intermediate housing is:Housing at prices or rents above those of social rent but below market prices or rents. Can include sub-market renting, low-cost home ownership and affordable home ownership.
What is housing need?
- Housing need refers to households who do not have their own housing (or living in housing which is inadequate or unsuitable) who are not able to meet their needs in the local housing market without some assistance.
- Households in housing need are the part of the population that is not included in market demand because they do not have a high enough income to rent or buy a home on the general housing market.
What is affordability?
- Affordability is the relationship between household incomes and house prices and rents.
- A household is considered likely to be able to afford to buy a home that costs 3.5 times the gross household income for a single income household, or 2.9 times the gross household income for dual income households.
- The size of mortgage that a household can afford is compared to the cost of an entry-level property. This has been calculated for North East Lincolnshire as of £73,516.
- A household is taken as being able to afford rented housing in cases where the rent payable would be no more than 25% of their gross household income. The rent payable has been calculated for North East Lincolnshire as £300 per month for a single income household and £500 per month for a dual income household
- A household is taken as being able to afford a shared equity property where the rent and mortgage costs are no more than 30% of gross income.
How does the Council deliver Affordable Housing?
The Council's Enabling and Partnership team supports the provision of affordable housing across the Borough by:
- Working with registered social landlords and housing developers to support their bids for funding to provide more affordable housing.
- Negotiating with housing developers so that a percentage of homes build on new housing developments are affordable for rent or through low cost home ownership schemes. This is achieved through working with the Planning department on section 106 planning agreements.
- Developing innovative appraoches to increasing the supply of affordable housing which overcome restrictions to the housing market and meeting changing housing need.
- Ensuring that the Council has up to date information on housing need so that new homes are suitable for the people who need them.
- Working with rural communities, housing providers and developers to secure rural affordable housing for local people with housing need.
A Joint Housing Needs and Market Assessment (HNMA) was carried out in 2006 covering North and North East Lincolnshire. This was reviewed in 2008 and again 2010.
Also see Rural affordable housing.