Housing Associations make record profits of £3.5bn in 2017

I think I'd rather work for Tesco. At least they're upfront about their objectives.

When responding to the news that their income represented £1 in every eight spent on the high street, didn't the MD or some other senior official say something like, "great but we want the other seven".

They need to make profits to build equity. They cannot operate on 100% debt.

They've been operating for over 20 years. They must have repaid a lot of debt in that period.

They borrow on the strength of their assets - the housing stock purchased from councils.

I don't know but I suspect they bought them for less than the true market value.  Then they've benefited from rising property values in the interim.

Up until recently, they were permitted to increase rents above inflation.

They must have equity pouring from every orifice!

I'd guess the ex-council properties in their portfolio's make up a very little percentage of their housing stock these days. Gone are the days when they started out as co-ops of some estate. They're massive companies these days , my mate works as a development manager for one and they build thousands of properties each year selling part to the private sector then retain the social housing part of the site to rent to tenants.

GJ - they probably don't build as many homes as you think. They definitely don't build as many as they should.

The stock of the large HAs which manage thousands of homes will still be mostly made up of ex-council properties.

Take look at this article (it's only short).

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https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/07/housing-associations-have-failed-to-build-houses/

I don't think things are as cut and dry as that article makes out, it's not like homes under the hammer developing one or two properties at at time. Many are large developments of hundreds of properties so require financing usually with builders like Barretts etc They're usually a long time in planning so the housing market at the time can dictate when   things get built and also the aquisition of land needs to be made well in advance. Alot of these HA's have large workforces and it's not really in their interest to leave them sitting idle or land bank.

Have a look at the peabody site for an idea of the builds they're currently involved in

https://www.peabody.org.uk/homes-in-development/wandsworth

I'd certainly prefer it if councils were allowed to compete but those days are long gone.

£ 3.5, yeah right, . This will become one of the biggest scandals in housing, they are purely for profit at any cost, I have recent first hand experience in dealing with these corporate sheep in wolves clothing. Affordable rental % of the claimed figures 3% AT BEST for new build, FFS You ain't seen nothing yet.