Believe It or Not! County Durham Housing Association Advertises Three-Bed Home's Rent at More Than £10,500 a Year
Affordable for Whom? Believe Housing's £880-a-Month Property Sparks Questions
17th October 2026
A three-bedroom so called 'social housing property' being advertised in one of Hartlepool's most affluent residential developments has raised questions about the affordability of homes offered through the areas housing allocation scheme, with prospective tenants facing an eye-watering rent bill of more than £10,500 a year.
The property, being advertised by County Durham landlords Believe Housing at Rose Gardens in Wynyard, carries a weekly charge of £203.08, equivalent to approximately £880 per calendar month.
That makes it one of the most expensive properties identified by The Teesside & Durham Post among recent listings on the Controversial & widely discredited Hartlepool Homesearch website, and considerably more expensive than several other family homes advertised through the same scheme.
Most strikingly, the amount being demanded is substantially greater than the average rent paid for a three-bedroom property in Hartlepool's already competitive private rental market.
A social housing property with an £880 monthly bill..
According to the official Hartlepool Homesearch advertisement, the property is a newly built three-bedroom house known as The Eynsford, situated within the Mason Gardens development in Wynyard.
The house offers a kitchen and dining area, living room, downstairs toilet, three bedrooms, family bathroom, en-suite to the main bedroom, enclosed rear garden and private driveway.
The weekly charge is broken down into £194.35 rent and an additional £8.73 service charge, bringing the total to £203.08.
Over 52 weeks, this amounts to £10,560.16 before council tax, utilities and other household bills are taken into consideration.
The property is being advertised through Hartlepool Homesearch, the borough's choice-based lettings scheme for registered social housing providers.
More expensive than a four-bedroom home
An examination of other publicly available properties previously advertised through Hartlepool Homesearch reveals a huge difference in rental costs.
In July 2026, a four-bedroom house on Millpool Close was advertised at £135.32 per week. The property featured four bedrooms, a driveway, gardens, downstairs WC, modern kitchen and freshly decorated accommodation.
Another three-bedroom house on Millpool Close was advertised in August at £125.72 per week, complete with a driveway and large garden.
By comparison, the Wynyard property costs approximately £77.36 more every week than that three-bedroom home — a difference of more than £4,000 annually, costs that would bring into question whether someone in social housing could ever afford that staggering diference in costs.
The examples demonstrate just how markedly rents can differ between homes advertised through the borough's controversial social housing system, where compared to the average private rental property across Hartlepool. Renting in the private sector runs at around £558 per month, while the average three-bedroom private property costs around £600. Raising the question as to whether anyone willing to pay such rent prices for a property and passing any affordability assesment wouldnt be better off mortgaging a similar property to get a cheeper deal?..
At approximately £880 per month, Believe Housing's Wynyard so called social housing property is therefore around £272 pounds more expensive than the borough-wide average for a three-bedroom private rental property.
That is a premium of almost 45%.
Although Wynyard is expected to be a more expensive housing market than many other parts of Hartlepool, the comparison raises questions about how affordability is being assessed when a property is offered through a social housing allocation system & whether anyone seeking access to the social housing register being able to afford this kind of rent wouldnt be better off instead applying for a mortgage?
Is this really affordable housing?
The advertisement raises a wider question about the difference between traditional social rent and the government's Affordable Rent model.
Under England's housing rent policy, traditional social housing rents are calculated using a government formula that takes account of factors including property values, local incomes and property size.
Affordable Rent properties, however, can generally be let at up to 80% of their equivalent private market rental value, including service charges.
Consequently, a property can officially be classified as affordable housing while carrying a substantially higher rent than older social housing stock, leaving the tax payer ultimately having to shoulder the increased rents through the housing element of Universal Credit.
The government's own guidance acknowledges that Affordable Rents are typically higher than Social Rents...
Affordability checks would exclude nearly all struggling families in the area...
Another interesting aspect of the Homesearch advertisement is that County Durham Based Landlords Believe Housing states all offers are subject to an affordability check and tenancy report under its New Build Lettings Policy.
Applicants are also expected to pay up to two weeks' rent when collecting their keys, potentially requiring an upfront payment of £406.16.
Furthermore, the property is restricted to households assessed as needing exactly three bedrooms, with a maximum occupancy of four people.
Believe Housing also makes it clear that applicants who've been assessed as requiring adaptations or ground-floor accommodation on medical grounds will not be considered for this particular property.
Although housing providers can legitimately consider whether applicants can afford a tenancy, these restrictions raise questions about who will realistically would qualify for a home carrying such a substantial rental charge.
For households reliant on Universal Credit, wages at the lower end of the earnings scale or a combination of benefits and employment income, finding an affordable family home can already be difficult.
For a family securing a three-bedroom Millpool Close property previously advertised at £125.72 per week, the annual rental cost would be approximately £6,537.
For the family taking on the Wynyard property, the equivalent annual housing charge would exceed £10,560.
That represents a difference of more than £4,000 each year for properties containing the same number of bedrooms.
Those figures prompt an important question: at what point does a home marketed through a social housing allocation scheme become financially inaccessible to the very households such schemes are intended to help?
The Wynyard property may offer modern accommodation in a desirable development, but its advertised price places it among some of the highest cost social housing listings identified by this publication in Hartlepool.
And with a monthly bill approaching £900PCM, the question of what constitutes genuinely affordable housing needs to be one thats picked up by the areas MP's, as properties at this rental scale cannot reasonable be considered affordable housing.
Especially when the vast majority of the population would have to be drug dealers to afford them !.
You can view the listing for the property at this link
