Don’t confuse these with social rents.

Affordable rents can be up to 80% of market levels, while social rents are typically far lower.

There is a difference between the political parties on what they might build when they promise more homes.

Rents set at 80% of market levels would vary sharply across England. The latest Valuation Office Agency figures show the median monthly rent as £1,473 in London and £480 in the North East. The South East had the second highest median monthly rent, at £850.

Conservatives

The Housing Minster has suggested in June that a “new generation of homes for social rent” promised by the Conservatives will be at affordable rent levels which can be up to 80% of the market rate, the housing minister has admitted.

Asked by Inside Housing if the new homes would be let at “low level council rents”, he replied: “No, I think the idea is that they are what you’d call affordable rents in housing terminology, but they are social housing.”

Social rents, set according to government formulas, are typically much lower than affordable rates, especially in high rent areas.

Social rents typically require higher initial government investment from grant, but affordable rents have been criticised for driving up the benefit bill and locking low-income tenants out of social housing.

Labour

The party is planning a major expansion of grant funding for new social rented homes, as well as ownership tenures such as shared ownership, with ‘Living Rent’ designed as its mid-market product.

The Living Rent homes would be set according to average incomes by local authority area and would result in a rent of, for example, £1,080 per month in Oxford for a two-bed property against a market rate of £1,300.

The party said the homes would be aimed at households on ordinary incomes renting privately but seeking to buy, with priority given to those with a local connection.

Local authorities would be permitted to prioritise certain groups based on specific local pressures, such as teachers, NHS workers or tradespeople.

Confused?- not long to wait now for the general election