Our UK Affordable Housing Guide – 2026 provides an update to our original guide released in December 2022. This update contains refreshed content and a view of the many changes to UK housing policy over the past few years.
- Since the 2024 UK general election, Labour have announced one of the largest set of changes to housing policy and associated legislation in a generation. We provide a view on the policies most likely to impact the affordable housing market.
- There are few, if any, investments that can claim to have as great a social impact as Affordable housing. This sector also benefits from factors such as supply/demand imbalance, durable income streams and strong investor appetite – themes explored in our Living including Why European Living Now? and Outlook 2026 – European Living.
- Yet the UK Affordable housing sector also benefits from specific factors and characteristics; affordability has become a critical issue, c. 1.3 million households are on waiting lists, fiscally-constrained balance sheets limiting the government’s ability to develop more Affordable homes.
- The sector is therefore in urgent need of private capital to assist with building a pipeline of new Affordable properties, and to help fund improvements to existing stock so that it meets increasingly stringent energy efficiency and fire-safety standard.
- Our UK Affordable Housing Guide discusses how sector attributes such as tenure types, subsidies, grants and regulation are often beneficial to investors, and the different investment approaches available to investors.