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

Citation

Soaita AM, Searle BA, McKee K & Moore T (2017) Becoming a landlord: strategies of property-based welfare in the private rental sector in Great Britain. Housing Studies, 32 (5), pp. 613-637. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2016.1228855

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.

Keywords
Private rental sector; landlords; asset-based welfare; property; inequality; United Kingdom

Journal
Housing Studies: Volume 32, Issue 5

People

Dr Kim McKee

Senior Lecturer, Housing Studies