Affordable Homes

Home ownership could be put within the reach of thousands more people in the West Midlands thanks to a new regional approach to affordable housing.

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has become the first region in the UK to introduce its own localised definition of affordable housing, linking the definition to the real world incomes of people in the area rather than to local house prices.

The new definition, which has been approved by the WMCA’s Housing and Land Board, is based on local people paying no more than 35% of their salary on mortgages or rent.