English housing associations have sold 25,000 social and affordable homes to private buyers since 2018/19, according to new research from the Local Councils Network (LCN).

In 2024/25 alone, 5,250 homes were sold to private owners who don't live in them – the highest annual total on record, up 89% in two years.

LCN's freedom of information analysis shows social rent stock is being offloaded faster than ever, often at full market price that councils say they cannot match.

While there might be legitimate reasons for the sales, there is currently no requirement for associations to reinvest proceeds locally or in equivalent affordable housing.

These private sales are on top of homes sold to tenants under the Right to Acquire or Right to Buy schemes.

The sales come as the Government pushes ahead with a 10-year plan for 180,000 new social rent homes.

LCN is urging MPs to use the Social Housing Bill, which had its Third Reading on 1 September, to protect this housing.

Its recommendations include a statutory right of first refusal for councils, longer notice periods before sales, a rescue fund to help buy back at-risk homes, and mandatory reinvestment of recovered grant funding into local replacement homes.

Cllr Paul Harvey, LCN's Social Housing Spokesperson, warned that continued losses could undermine the Government's housing programme, with 1.34 million households currently on waiting lists.

‘It would be a disaster if the biggest social housing building programme in a generation was undermined by the loss of existing social homes,’ he said.

‘We’re calling on the Government to ensure public funding for new social housing goes only to those social landlords which manage disposals responsibly, so the new homes being built aren’t cancelled out by the ones being lost.’