Paul Rickard is CEO of Pocket Living, a leading SME developer of affordable homes for sale and rent. He has 25 years’ experience in real estate having started his career at Andersen, working in real estate and banking capital markets, before joining a corporate finance advisory firm, with a focus on funding, investment, capital markets, treasury and financial planning. Paul has held executive leadership roles in a number of real estate companies and is also Chair of Qualis Flow, a Series A ESG company decarbonising and digitising construction in the UK and US.
Pocket isn’t the answer to the housing crisis, but it is a critical solution to a specific market failure, one that, if left unaddressed, will threaten the capital’s long-term vitality.
Back in 2008, just as Boris Johnson was settling into City Hall, Pocket was putting the final touches on its very first scheme. It was a small site, but a big moment, London’s first-ever 100% discount market sale housing development. At the time, it felt like we were trying something radical: a new model aimed squarely at helping those on moderate incomes – the nurses, bus drivers, teachers, and firefighters who keep the city running, who earned too much for social housing but couldn’t dream of affording market prices. The so-called “squeezed middle”, our City Makers, had been left behind by the system, and we believed we’d found at least part of the answer.
Over the years, we’ve done our best to tackle that challenge, delivering 1,700 discount market sale (DMS) homes and, more recently, evolving our model to include affordable rental options in response to changing affordability pressures.
And yet, looking back over those years, we have to face a difficult truth: as a sector, we’ve failed to find a lasting solution for London’s City Makers. We used to meet teachers and nurses in their twenties buying their first home in the city. Now, those same people tell us they’ve given up on ever owning, priced out, and stuck in a rental market that feels more punishing with every passing year.
The Numbers Tell the Story: 2008 vs 2025
• The average income of a first-time buyer in London has almost doubled — from £75,000 in 2008 to over £150,000 in 2025[1].
• The average age of a Pocket buyer has gone from late 20s in 2008 to around 35 in 2025.
• The real term pay for middle earners in the capital is now 9% lower than it was in 2008[2] and the average rent for a one-bed home for a newly qualified nurse is unaffordable in all local authorities in London[3].
1. How London’s property market became an inheritocracy
2. How has Londoners’ pay changed over time | Trust for London
3. Private rentals in almost half of England unaffordable to new NHS nurses – Shelter England
What Can We Do?
• We recently published a range of pragmatic, low cost, and relatively straight forward policy suggestions to support SMEs: but we also need to change the way we think about discount market housing.
• Too often, discounted products are seen by policymakers as a zero-sum game, competing with social housing for limited resources. But in a housing system that is heavily dependent on government subsidy, DMS and rental products offer something different: a grant-free route to affordability.
• By supporting these models, we free up treasury funds that can be targeted toward delivering more social rented homes, rather than treating affordable housing as a one-size-fits-all solution.
What the government can do to help
Demand Side
We welcome recent announcements to support first-time buyers through making the Freedom to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme permanent.
But more must be done to address borrowing constraints that don’t reflect real-world affordability, including:
- 1. Exempt first-time buyers from the 4.5x income cap up to a set property value, letting regulated UK lenders use their own credit criteria.
- 2. Strengthen Freedom to Buy by requiring banks to offer it on new-build homes (houses and flats) and publish transparent take-up data by tenure and region.
Supply Side
1. ‘100% Affordable Hall Pass’ An Incentives-Based NDMP to Unlock Affordable Housing
As part of the upcoming policy changes, the government will roll out a new framework which cuts across local and national policy; National Development Management Policies (NDMPs). This presents a significant opportunity to be bold. The government should seize it by introducing a simple, incentives-based rule:
Where a scheme delivers 100% affordable homes, it is exempt from local planning policies on tenure or mix.
This “carrot” would incentivise developers to bring forward 100% affordable schemes, including 100% Discounted Market Sale, without risk of refusal for non-compliance with local policy requirements.
Why It’s Needed & Impact
• Viability has collapsed across many sites, stalling delivery. Even public bodies struggle to meet tenure policies.
• In London for example, at the Stag Brewery inquiry (2024), the GLA accepted only 12% affordable housing was viable, in part due to rigid requirements on tenure and mix of the affordable offering.
• This would incentivise the sector to deliver higher levels of all types of affordable housing.
2. Consistent CIL Policy for All Affordable Models as Defined by the NPPF
Currently, Shared Ownership benefits from CIL exemption, while DMS does not, despite often being more affordable and less profitable. Extending CIL exemption to all affordable tenures, including DMS, would ensure a level playing field and incentivise delivery. The CIL Regulations can be amended overnight and this straightforward technical change would bring policy in line with the Government’s stated ambition to support a wider range of affordable home ownership models.
Time to act
With just a few targeted measures, a national government could, almost overnight, make investing in these types of homes a far more compelling proposition and dramatically improve the prospects for City Makers, not only in London but right across the country.
