To profit or not to profit?

Chartered Institute of Housing National Conference 2012 - To profit or not to profit?

As for profit providers start to operate in the affordable housing sector - Keith Exford, Chief Executive of Affinity Sutton, talks to housing professionals in Manchester about how it's possible to benefit from these relationships.

Affinity Sutton is currently working on four joint ventures with private developers. 

Three of these ventures are with construction company Galliford Try and its housebuilder arm Linden Homes, which include a 750-home, mixed tenure, zero-carbon development at Graylingwell Park in Chichester, the first phase of which is already complete.

Affinity Sutton’s fourth joint venture is with residential developer Mount Anvil, which will lead to the development of a landmark 36-storey tower block on City Road in the centre of the capital.

‘If we work with a house builder on a joint venture where there’s a mix of social housing and housing for sale and we’re going to share in the profits for that housing for sale to subsidise the affordable housing, we would almost always ask the house builder to deal with the sales element, because they’ll have much more experience of it than we do. They’re far better at maximising the return from the scheme.

‘When it comes to negotiating with the local authority about particular arrangements for the scheme then we’re probably more experienced at that within Affinity Sutton,’ he adds.

Most importantly he stress "You can work collaboratively with the private sector, learn from each other and play to your respective strengths,’ he said."