Becoming a landlord: strategies of property-based welfare in the private rental sector in Great Britain

Abstract

Ongoing neoliberal policies have realigned the links between housing and welfare, positioning residential property investment--commonly through homeownership and exceptionally also through landlordism--at the core of households' asset-building strategies. Nonetheless the private rented sector (PRS) has been commonly portrayed as a tenure option for tenants rather than a welfare strategy for landlords. Drawing on qualitative interviews with landlords across Great Britain, we explore landlords' different motivations in engaging in landlordism; and the ways in which their property-based welfare strategies are shaped by the particular intersection of individual socioeconomic and life-course circumstances, and the broader socioeconomic and financial environment. By employing a constructionist grounded approach to research, our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the different ways that asset-based welfare strategies operate within the PRS. We draw attention to an understudied nexus between homeownership and landlordism which we argue represents a promising route for future research.

The Revival of Private Landlords in Britain’s Post-Homeownership Society

“…Indeed, while the recent return of private renting has received considerable attention in the housing literature (e.g. Rugg and Rhodes 2008, Crook and Kemp 2010, Sprigings and Smith 2012, Wallace and Rugg 2014, Kemp 2015 in more focused debates about housing and welfare, the sector has been considered primarily in terms of disadvantaged tenants, overlooking the emerging significance of property investment among an expanding range of households (see Soaita et al 2016). As we argue, the previous era of homeownership and house price inflation has created conditions where an increasing number of households have been both able, and eager to buy up ever more housing property.…”

“…While analyses suggest that recent private rental sector revival is characteristically neo-liberal and a departure from traditional practices (Scanlon and Whitehead 2005, Rugg and Rhodes 2008, Leyshon and French 2009, Sprigings and Smith 2012, Kemp 2015, a few (i.e. Soaita et al 2016) have begun to recognise the significance of rental property investment as an alternative to a pension or a means of restructuring the management of economic risk. Second, it examines how resurgence in the private rental sector is driving new socioeconomic inequalities manifest through differentiated access to market housing and asset-based welfare practices.…”

‘Generation Rent’ and The Fallacy of Choice

“…Yet the relationship between tenants, landlords and the state within these shifting housing tenure struc tures is a complex and multifaceted one. The role of landlords within these processes is beyond the scope of this article and remains an area where further qualitative research is needed (for an exception, see Soaita et al, 2016).…”

In which European countries is homeownership more financially advantageous? Explaining the size of the tenure wealth gap in 10 countries with different housing and welfare regimes

“…The pro-active form of ABW is not associated with the primary residence, but with rental income from secondary properties. Especially in insurancebased welfare states with a fragmented occupational second-tier pension system (such as the German-speaking countries, Belgium and France), occupational groups that are not well-covered by social security, such as the self-employed, traditionally engage in private small-scale landlordism (De Decker & Dewilde, 2010;Soaita, Searle, McKee, & Moore, 2017). During working life, income from entrepreneurship is invested in purchasing one or more properties that yield rental income for their owners after retirement.…”

“…In contrast, the upswing of buy-to-let landlordism in the liberal welfare regime may have very different foundations. For the UK, Soaita et al (2017) indicate that private landlordism and buy-to-let activities are mostly a pure investment strategy, speculating on house price inflation, sometimes coupled to intergenerational support to children whose entry into homeownership is impeded due to house price inflation.…”