New analysis reveals the value of privately rented homes in England jumped an average of 432% between 1990-2022 – winning landlords more wealth than the GDP of South Africa. This is the outcome of decades of broken housing policies designed to turn homes into financial assets.
This year, rising interest rates have pushed the long-stretched English housing market into further woe. New housing Minister Rachel Maclean, the 15th since 2010, has to face the results of decades of poor management by her predecessors: the loss of social homes, the erosion of public spending on homes, excessive and risky mortgage lending to people who won’t live in the homes they are buying (13% of mortgages go to landlords), and lack of action on private investors pumping money into housing and inflating prices.
All are connected, but one particular chain of policy decisions currently coming to a head is the massive expansion of the private rented sector (PRS). Between 1990 and 2020, the PRS doubled in size, with over 2.6 million more homes rented out privately.
From the 1950s, successive politicians of all stripes have sought to increase rates of homeownership and encourage people to store wealth in their homes – the so-called
— source positivemoney.org | Martha Dillon | 18 Jul 2023