Cross subsidy

The basic idea is simple. On any site where homes are built both for private sale and for a housing association, the private homes gives the developer a profit and helps pay for the association’s affordable homes. Everybody wins. The builder gets homes to sell in areas of high demand, and the association gets homes it could not have afforded.

There are benefits of scale because the same home type can be provided for both the social and private housing, although the social housing often has more space while the private homes have better internal specifications.