Monday Mortgages Research

The Right to Buy Report 2026

Sales, applications, receipts and regional trends across England

Published 21 September 2026 | Last updated 21 September 2026 | By Monday Mortgages | Approximately 14 minutes

Right to Buy activity changed sharply around the November 2024 reduction in maximum cash discounts. Applications more than tripled in 2024/25, while the newest 2025/26 eligible-sales series shows an 89.8% annual rise.

Those two figures need careful interpretation. The latest 2025/26 release counts eligible sales, which aren't identical to all statutory Right to Buy sales. Definitive council-level comparisons currently end in 2024/25. This report keeps those measures separate and combines them with council-stock data to show where Right to Buy was most prevalent relative to the homes that could be sold.

Executive summary

• MHCLG recorded about 14,275 eligible sales in 2025/26, up 89.8% from the previous year. MHCLG says some completions are likely to relate to applications made before the lower maximum discounts took effect on 21 November 2024.
• Councils received 63,378 Right to Buy applications in 2024/25, up 237.9% from 18,755 and the highest annual total since 2004/05.
• Revised definitive data records 9,273 sales through Right to Buy schemes in 2024/25: 7,617 statutory council sales and 1,656 Preserved or Voluntary Right to Buy sales by private registered providers.
• Across authorities with an aligned HRA stock denominator, England recorded 4.88 statutory sales per 1,000 HRA dwellings in 2024/25.
• Nottingham had the highest qualifying council rate, at 13.32 sales per 1,000 HRA homes. Birmingham had the most sales in absolute terms, at 508.
• The North East had the highest regional rate, at 7.01 sales per 1,000 HRA homes. The South East was lowest at 2.73.
• London recorded 3.49 sales per 1,000 HRA homes, compared with 5.34 outside London. However, 75.7% of London's council Right to Buy sales were flats.
• Eligible-sale receipts reached £1.611 billion, averaging £112,873 per dwelling. MHCLG reported 3,452 replacement starts and acquisitions funded during the year.

1. Right to Buy in 2026

The newest annual release covers local-authority sales subject to the pooling of housing-capital-receipts rules. MHCLG calls these eligible sales. They include most local-authority Right to Buy transactions, but they also include small numbers of shared-ownership and other eligible sales. Some statutory Right to Buy sales are excluded, including relevant homes built or acquired after July 2008.

MHCLG recorded 14,275.33 eligible sales in 2025/26, compared with 7,520.68 in 2024/25. The decimal values arise because some qualifying shared-ownership transactions are represented as proportions of a dwelling.

This is a leading indicator. The definitive 2025/26 Social Housing Sales and Demolitions statistics are expected in early 2027. Until then, the 2025/26 series is suitable for national and regional trends, while 2024/25 remains the latest robust year for exact local-authority statutory Right to Buy comparisons.

Enlarge

2. How Right to Buy sales have changed

MHCLG's 2025/26 release states that 2,052,813 homes had been sold to tenants through Right to Buy schemes from 1980 to 31 March 2026. The historical measure combines statutory Right to Buy with Preserved and Voluntary Right to Buy where available.

Annual sales peaked at 167,123 in 1982/83, fell through the 1990s and 2000s, and reached a post-first-year low of 3,144 in 2009/10. Activity rose after the scheme was reinvigorated in 2012, when maximum discounts increased. The 1980/81 figure covers only the scheme's partial first financial year.

The long-term series also changes coverage. Private registered provider data becomes available later than council data, and historical provider-level figures sometimes use all sales to sitting tenants where a precise scheme breakdown wasn't collected. The chart is therefore useful for direction and scale, but it shouldn't be read as a perfectly unchanged measure across every year.

Enlarge

The February 2026 release originally reported 9,236 Right to Buy-scheme sales in 2024/25. MHCLG revised the underlying open data in June 2026. The latest files now total 9,273, comprising 7,617 council statutory Right to Buy sales and 1,656 Preserved or Voluntary Right to Buy sales by private registered providers.

3. The surge in applications before the discount changes

Applications rose from 18,755 in 2023/24 to 63,378 in 2024/25, an increase of 237.9%. This was the highest annual total since 2004/05.

The government announced lower maximum cash discounts on 30 October 2024, and the new caps applied to applications made from 21 November 2024. That left 21 days in which eligible tenants could submit under the previous caps of £136,400 in London and £102,400 elsewhere. The replacement caps ranged from £16,000 to £38,000 depending on location.

MHCLG attributes the application surge to this period and says some 2025/26 completions are likely to relate to applications made under the previous higher caps. The annual data doesn't let us identify how many individual 2025/26 sales came from pre-change applications, so we haven't estimated a causal share.

Enlarge

Applications and sales in the same financial year shouldn't be divided to create a conversion rate. A completion can relate to an application made in an earlier period.

What does Q1 2026/27 suggest?

Available provisional returns recorded about 2,371.5 Right to Buy sales in Q1 2026/27. Across the 156 authorities with numeric figures in both periods, the total was 15.6% lower than Q1 2025/26: 2,371.5 compared with 2,810.

This is an early indicator only. The data was captured on 7 August 2026, includes unavailable returns, may be revised, and isn't subject to the same quality assurance as annual official statistics. One quarter shouldn't be treated as a forecast for the full financial year.

4. Where Right to Buy activity is highest

Raw sales counts naturally favour councils with large housing portfolios. We therefore calculated statutory Right to Buy sales per 1,000 HRA dwellings owned by each authority.

The North East recorded the highest aligned regional rate in 2024/25, narrowly ahead of the West Midlands. The South East had the lowest rate.

Enlarge

The 2025/26 eligible-sales indicator points to a similar concentration in the Midlands and North. The East Midlands recorded 12.61 eligible sales per 1,000 council homes, almost twice the South West's 6.35. These newer figures shouldn't replace the definitive 2024/25 comparison.

5. Right to Buy by local authority

Nottingham recorded the highest qualifying 2024/25 rate at 13.32 statutory sales per 1,000 HRA dwellings, around 2.7 times the aligned England rate of 4.88. Derby ranked second at 9.74, followed by Norwich at 9.43.

Enlarge

Authorities needed at least 1,000 HRA dwellings to enter the ranking. The full downloadable data retains smaller authorities but flags the denominator risk.

Councils with the most sales

Birmingham recorded the most statutory Right to Buy sales, at 508. Leeds followed with 376, while Nottingham recorded 328. Birmingham's stock-adjusted rate was also high at 8.64 per 1,000 HRA homes.

Councils receiving the most applications

Birmingham received 4,527 applications in 2024/25, followed by Leeds with 3,926 and Sheffield with 2,322. These counts show workload and applicant interest, not completed purchases.

Enlarge

6. London and Right to Buy

London recorded 1,359 statutory council Right to Buy sales in 2024/25. That was 3.49 per 1,000 HRA dwellings, below the 5.34 rate for England outside London.

London's property mix was very different. Flats made up 75.7% of council Right to Buy sales, compared with about 23.6% outside London. Some of that difference is likely to reflect the shape of existing council stock, not just buyer preferences.

Enlarge

Redbridge had the highest qualifying borough rate at 6.84 sales per 1,000 HRA dwellings. Barking and Dagenham recorded the most borough sales, at 109.

Enlarge

Southwark reported 1,880 applications, the highest London figure. Its LAHS return is marked Saved rather than Submitted, so that figure should be treated as reported activity from an incomplete return. Sheffield, Sunderland and Bromley also have Saved returns in the June 2026 dataset.

Within the South London grouping used for this report, Greenwich recorded the highest qualifying rate at 5.19 sales per 1,000 HRA homes and the most sales, at 104. South London isn't an official statistical geography, so this is an editorial grouping for local reporting.

7. What councils received from eligible sales

Councils received £1.611 billion from eligible sales in 2025/26. The average receipt was £112,873 per dwelling, 82.6% higher than the £61,806 average in 2012/13.

London's average was £198,760, compared with £59,484 in the North East. Average receipt shouldn't be interpreted as market value, discount or council profit. Receipts reported in one financial year can also arise from a sale in another year.

Enlarge

8. Right to Buy sales and replacement homes

MHCLG reported 3,452 replacement starts and acquisitions funded through Right to Buy receipts in 2025/26, down about 7% from 3,702 in 2024/25.

That equals 24.2 replacements funded during the year for every 100 eligible sales recorded. This is not a replacement rate for the homes sold in 2025/26. Receipts can be spent and replacement activity can be reported in different periods.

Enlarge

The tenure breakdown shifted in 2025/26. Social-rent replacements reached 2,249, slightly above 2,135 affordable-rent replacements. This was the first year in the 2021/22 to 2025/26 breakdown in which social rent was the largest of those two tenures.

The replacement series also has limitations. MHCLG says Homes England hasn't separately recorded Right to Buy-funded starts since 2023/24, so starts may be undercounted. The former one-for-one replacement target is no longer reported in this statistical series.

9. What the latest figures can and can't tell us

The data supports several clear conclusions:

• applications surged immediately before lower maximum discounts took effect;
• eligible sales then rose sharply in 2025/26;
• stock-adjusted activity differs materially between regions and councils;
• London has a much more flat-heavy sales profile;
• receipt values vary widely by region.

The data doesn't show:

• exactly how many 2025/26 completions came from pre-change applications;
• a same-year application conversion rate;
• a cohort replacement rate for homes sold in a particular year;
• definitive 2025/26 statutory sales for each council;
• whether policy changes alone caused each movement.

10. Full data

The downloadable council dataset includes:

• 2024/25 definitive statutory Right to Buy sales;
• HRA council stock at 31 March 2024, immediately before the sales year;
• sales per 1,000 HRA dwellings;
• 2023/24, 2019/20 and 2012/13 comparison figures;
• applications and applications per 1,000 HRA dwellings;
• flat sales and flat share;
• ranking and denominator warnings.

11. Methodology

The main stock-adjusted metric is:

statutory local-authority Right to Buy sales ÷ HRA dwellings owned at 31 March × 1,000

We use HRA stock because it aligns the homes owned by the reporting authority with the sales reported by that authority. The denominator is stock at 31 March 2024, immediately before the 2024/25 sales year. Two statutory sales were recorded by authorities without an HRA denominator. They remain in the national count of 7,617 but are excluded from the aligned rate numerator, producing 7,615 aligned sales over 1,561,328 HRA dwellings.

Regional rates aggregate the numerator and denominator before division. Authorities with fewer than 1,000 HRA dwellings are excluded from rate rankings. Missing and suppressed values remain unavailable rather than being converted to zero.

Historical council comparisons use MHCLG's April 2024 geography fields. Where predecessor authorities map to one current authority, their source values are summed. Changes aren't calculated where the base is zero or unavailable.

The 2025/26 figures are eligible sales, a leading indicator, while definitive council-level comparisons use the revised 2024/25 Local Authority Housing Statistics. Applications and sales in the same year aren't a conversion rate, and annual sales and replacements aren't matched cohorts.

The full methodology covers field definitions, exclusions, geography treatment, missing values, rounding and QA checks.

Read the full methodology and source register →

Sources

This report uses primary MHCLG sources:

• Right to Buy sales and replacements, England: 2025 to 2026
• Right to Buy sales and replacements technical notes
• Social housing sales and demolitions 2024/25
• Local Authority Housing Statistics open data
• Live tables on social housing sales
• Current Right to Buy discount guidance

Frequently asked questions