WELL-meaning organisations, staffed by part-timers, that provide homes for a few needy families? Or deceptively cosy-sounding enterprises, sometimes as big as FTSE 100 companies?

Britain's 1,555 housing associations - the powers-that-be in affordable homes - control £74 billion worth of properties. Sanctuary, Home Group and Places for People, the big three players in the game, between them manage 180,000 homes.

Yet these not-for-profit yet highly commercial businesses are still widely perceived as small-time operators, remnants of past philanthropic institutions. One compelling reason to familiarise yourself with their increasing financial and political clout is the possibility that you or a family member could benefit from their help. The consequences of yet another government debacle - a new episode of bungling that can barely be believed - means that you should not delay your investigations. But more of that later.

Housing associations have taken the place of local authorities as builders of new social homes, but their role is different from that played by councils - and some among their clientele are far from needy. A housing association might allocate you a stake in a place of your own - even if you are not quite on the breadline, or even a key worker, such as a nurse or firefighter. Yet you could earn as much as £52,500 and still be eligible for a housing association's shared-ownership or shared-equity scheme in London.

The rules governing income and other criteria are complex. But tackling the bureaucracy opens up opportunities, such as the chance to acquire a home from a developer of dwellings for picky billionaires who must also fulfil his commitment to supply homes for first-time buyers without deep pockets.

Flats at the opulent One Hyde Park scheme by the developer Candy & Candy in Knightsbridge are selling for £100million apiece. The social housing element of this oligarch-standard scheme will not be built alongside or come anywhere close in luxury. However, the location for these homes - Pimlico - is scarcely a hardship posting. The identity of the RSL - registered social landlord, another term for housing association - for this low-calorie Candy & Candy development is yet to be revealed but is eagerly awaited.

Whichever outfit is given the task of finding occupants for the 70 units planned, it can expect huge numbers of applicants. The new urgency in discovering what help housing associations might extend to you arises because, despite finances that are extremely sound, they are the next candidates for - wait for it - nationalisation. Northern Rock, it seems, is not enough for the Treasury.

As a result of the poor drafting of the Housing Bill, housing associations' debts could be taken on to the Government's books, turning them into public bodies. This would bar them from borrowing from banks, as they do at present, and so obstruct their plans to put roofs over more heads. Those on lower incomes might be forced to forgo comforts usually available only to the better-off - such as granite worktops. As we report, these surfaces embody for some owner-occupiers the pleasure of a home of your own. The offending clauses must go or the Government will look even more foolish than it does now.

NATURE LESSON

Bats, newts, natterjacks toads and downsizers: these are key to the property market just now. Biodiversity has become a selling point for housebuilders who are making a virtue out of the legislation requiring habitats that sustain all creatures great and small. A wildlife corridor with reed beds and cormorants is proving to be a lure at a Linden Homes development in Redhill, Surrey. Buyers, it seems, have been longing to get in touch with their inner David Attenborough.

Property market commentators who prefer to concentrate their research on the human species are closely observing the behaviour of downsizers - those empty-nesters (this natural history terminology is spreading out all over) looking to sell up and move to pastures new - although some may wish to settle in inner cities, where there is more nocturnal activity.

Lucian Cook, of Savills, points out that downsizers occupy the substantial family houses that remain the most sought-after, even in a slowdown. If the would-be downsizers find that their houses are retaining their value, they may be tempted to move. Such relocation decisions would trigger further transactions, as some parents would release capital to allow their would-be first-time-buyer children to clamber on to the housing ladder. The withdrawal this week of some of the 125 per cent mortgage deals aimed at first-time buyers makes such intergenerational subsidies even more valuable.

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