Affordable housing has long been seen as the last resort of the underprivileged. But as prices creep up to their boom-time highs and the supply of affordable home loans continues to dry up, they have become the first (and often only) port of call for those after a home of their own — even the affluent. In our special report, we will help you to navigate the taxpayer-funded schemes through which these bodies can help you to secure a home. Expect to battle confusion — these are complex schemes, as are your mortgage options — but the rewards can be great.

The homes available can be surprisingly sleek, well-finished and in the most desirable of locations. And buyers now include those who fell off the property ladder after death or divorce. For example, Christine Kronfli, 67, recently bought a home at Kings Quarter in Maidenhead, Berkshire, through a Thames Valley Housing shared-ownership scheme (tvha-kingsquarter.co.uk). One housing association, Hyde, said that demand was such that sales in August were 59 per cent higher than a year ago.

Sue Cocking, head of affordable housing at Knight Frank, says that the rules have become less restrictive. If you are a first-time buyer earning up to £60,000, many homes could now be accessible to you, but you must be prepared to have your eligibility checked. “That can be depersonalising and stressful,” warns one housing association employee, who prefers not be identified.

Housing associations can seem off-putting, bedevilled as they are with baffling political jargon, which we decode on page 6. Yet many are starting to take a more consumer-friendly approach and hold open days. Some of the most active names in London include Genesis Homes, London & Quadrant, Metropolitan Home Ownership, Notting Hill Housing and Circle Anglia. In the capital, Housing Options (housingoptions.co.uk) provides an application form covering all housing associations. For options nationwide, go to www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/homebuy_agents.

Cocking also recommends walking around the area in which you would like to live and looking for the HomeBuy logo on development boards, and scouring newspaper advertisements. Some property search websites, such as Rightmove, allow you to search for shared-ownership schemes.

Finding developments which appeal is unlikely to be a problem. But finding a mortgage could be tougher. “The big problem with shared ownership is that lenders are not lending against it. They see it as risky because the contract is not like a normal house purchase,” says Miriam Morris, development marketing director at Places for People. “Some housing associations struggle to shift shared-ownership homes as a result.” Places for People is tackling the issue by offering 100 per cent mortgages on shared-ownership homes at Wolverton Park, a smart historic conversion and new-build development near Milton Keynes.

The credit crunch has affected housing associations in other ways. One reason for their rapid recent growth is that developers had to provide affordable homes to meet planning conditions for houses, shops and offices. During the boom, hundreds of thousands of homes were handed over to associations for rent or sale. But as building dried up from the credit crunch, so did these agreements.

Associations are now much more reliant on grants from the Government to help them buy land and develop homes. And, like ordinary housebuilders, they also have to borrow from the banks. “For a year, we stopped doing new schemes so that we could take stock of the situation and raise money,” says Steve Coleman, development director at Genesis Homes. Genesis is developing again and has 3,000 new homes on sites from London to Northampton.

Some housing associations turned the financial difficulties to their advantage last year by using government grants to buy developers’ unsold stock. But Cocking says grants will start to come under scrutiny as public spending is cut back. “Housing associations will have to make less money go further,” she says.

But there could be some good news for buyers. Housing associations are having to open up low-cost home ownership schemes to a wider base of people to find enough buyers with access to mortgages.

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