Private Rented Sector Research Articles

Life for rent: Evolving residential infrastructure in London and the rise of Build-to-Rent

Build-to-Rent (BTR) developments have expanded rapidly in the UK since 2013, often advertised as providing better quality rented accommodation for university-educated Millennials than available elsewhere in the private rental sector. However, the implications of this type of housing development, and especially its affordability, are poorly understood at the city scale, partly due to a lack of evidence of where these developments cluster and what they add to the housing stock in terms of property type, amenities and cost. This article draws on data relating to 373 BTR developments in London (representing over 40,000 housing units) to show that developments are clustered where transport-related infrastructural investments have opened ‘rent gaps’ that can be exploited by developers. Exploring how these BTR schemes are marketed, the article shows that this accommodation is typically provided through new short-term ‘subscription services’ which allow developers to rent property at a premium. Questioning whether BTRs really add affordable ‘local’ homes to the city, the article concludes that BTR provides ‘quick-fix’ rental accommodation which is doing little to solve London’s housing crisis. We focus on the London BTR market and how the expansion of this housing type is reshaping the sociospatial geographies of the city.

Making rent: how forced migrant families access private rental housing in the Biqa’ Valley, Lebanon

The private rental market is a key provider of housing to forced migrants. This paper examines qualitative data from case study research in rapidly urbanizing towns in the Biqa’ Valley, Lebanon, focusing on Syrian forced migrants’ efforts to access housing through the local private rental sector. Building on literature about landlord–tenant relations and anthropological work on kin, I argue that rental agreements ought to be understood as both financial and social arrangements, which involve family members, landlords and middlemen ( shaweesh) in complex rental ecologies. I find that young Syrians are caught up in evolving financial and social obligations, which make inhabitation possible, but which perpetuate gendered and xenophobic forms of dispossession. I argue that humanitarian and development actors advocating for the right of forced migrants to settle in urban areas ought to avoid perpetuating reliance on an inequitable private rental sector.

On and beyond gentrifiers: middling transnationals, rental agents, and the housing search

Drawing inspiration from autoethnographic accounts of gentrification, this paper examines the privileges and disadvantages of middling transnationals in the private rented sector to reveal the complexity of housing decisions, thereby challenging the inclination to conceive this particular group as ‘gentrifiers’. By demonstrating the ability of middle-class migrants to prioritize their preferences while considering the challenges they face due to their newcomer status, this paper contends that housing decisions are the outcome of the interplay between migrants, rental agents, and digital platforms. In so doing, this paper highlights the gatekeeping capability of traditional and digital intermediaries in the rental market. Methodologically, this paper underscores the value of the microscopic view enabled by autoethnography, which broadens gentrification research by facilitating the recognition of emerging trends and the identification of promising areas for future research. Overall, through its reflection on the potential influences of transnational migrants on gentrification, this paper contributes to research efforts that intend to understand gentrification in relation to migration.

Local government interventions for improving the health and wellbeing of tenants in private rented housing: developing initial program theory to inform evaluation in the United Kingdom

BackgroundHousing is an important wider determinant of health. Private Rented Sector (PRS) housing is generally the worst quality of housing stock across tenures. Although a wide range of interventions are available to local governments to manage and improve the quality of PRS housing and therefore the health of tenants, there is limited evidence about the extent to which these are used. This study aims to explore what drives the use of different interventions in different local governments, to better understand and inform local strategies.MethodsAs the first realist evaluation on this topic, the range of available interventions was informed by a Local Government Association toolkit. Consistent with realist approaches, retroductive analysis of intervention-context-mechanism-outcome configurations helped to develop and refine Initial Programme Theories (IPTs). Data sources included local government housing documents, a survey and eleven semi-structured interviews with housing officers.ResultsUsing data for 22 out of the 30 local governments in the South West region of the United Kingdom, eight IPTs were developed which act on different levels from individual PRS team leaders to system wide. The IPTs include a belief in market forces, risk adverse to legal challenge, attitude to enforcement, relational approaches to partnership working, job security and renumeration, financial incentives drive action, and system-level understanding of the drivers of poor health, inequalities and opportunities for cost-savings. The findings suggest that limited objective health outcomes are being used to understand impact, which hinders interpretation of the effectiveness of all mechanisms.ConclusionInterventions that bring about positive outcomes in managing PRS housing are unlikely to be universal; they depend on the context which differs across place and over time. The proposed IPTs highlight the need for strategies to be tailored considering the local context and should be evaluated in subsequent phases of study.

Local authority intervention in private renting: from compliance to hardline enforcement

AbstractDrawing on data from two empirical projects concerned with local authority enforcement of standards in the private rented sector, this article argues that there are signs of greater use of formal enforcement approaches, and that these approaches are increasingly ‘hardline’. This finding runs counter to the existing scholarship on regulatory enforcement, which emphasizes securing compliance over formal enforcement. Securing compliance is also integral to the regulatory guidance in this sphere of activity. Further, in the context of cuts to local authority funding and greater local authority demand for private rented stock to meet household needs, the shift to hardline approaches requires explanation. Drawing on Keith Hawkins’ and Peter Manning's theory of legal decision making, which emphasizes consideration of the surround, the field, and the frame, the authors explain how changes to the field, in particular, have encouraged this shift.

Proptech and the private rental sector: New forms of extraction at the intersection of rental properties and platform rentierisation

Private renting increasingly comprises a complex ecosystem of actors who assemble housing within the market, and collect rental income and data from tenants, and data on the material assets themselves. Our analysis – at the intersection of rentier and platform capitalism – focuses on landed (material real estate) and technological (digital infrastructure and data) property in Australia’s private rental system. Drawing out relationships between the various actors – landlords, rental property managers and real estate agencies, software developers and providers, property developers and investors – and both their properties and their uses of Proptech (property technology), we show how housing and technology are being leveraged for profit in new ways. In Australia, landed property retains its precedence for established (individual and institutional) landlords, whose interest in Proptech relates to enhancing or value-adding to rental housing assets. For Proptech and institutional real estate players seeking to consolidate both landed and technology property, capturing the tech landscape is increasingly important; indeed, securing control and/or consolidation of technology property is a key motivation for building and/or using Proptech among the largest property developers. Our findings show how rent extraction operates across and between different types and scales of property and market actors, and in new ways that differentiate the figure of the rentier while upholding the dynamics of the rentier model.

Leveraging the potential of local government scrutiny: a case study of Southampton City Council scrutiny inquiry into its private rented sector

ABSTRACT Drawing on the authors’ experience of being involved as technical experts in Southampton City Council’s interrogation of the private rented sector, the paper considers the potential and the limitations of local government scrutiny inquires as a mechanism for assisting in the achievement of social justice. Scrutiny Inquiries are a relatively new democratic initiative introduced to provide a counterbalance to the greater concentration of powers in the council executive brought about by the Local Government Act 2000. The paper contributes to the literature on local government scrutiny, which is currently driven by public administration scholarship, by developing a holistic socio-legal analysis that seeks to embed a single case study within the wider complex legal, political and social environment. Although Scrutiny Inquiries empower back-bench local councillors and, to a lesser extent, promote community engagement in local government decision making, the paper identifies how austerity localism and reforms to the broader accountability environment have exposed gaps in the system of oversight of local government performance. Nonetheless we found there was political potential in the scrutiny inquiry process because it mobilised landlords and tenants in the city and provided a template for local action on private renting.

Does Digital Status Unlawfully Penalise EU Citizens Accessing the UK's Private Rented Sector?

In the past few years, more than six million EU citizens living in the UK have transitioned to a new immigration status. The only evidence they have of this new status is in digital form. This group is now navigating the UK's ‘compliant environment,’ designed to deter unauthorised migration, with this new form of status. This has created an unpredictable new dynamic with serious risks of discrimination in everyday interactions, such as when people are trying to rent a property. In this article, we explore the impact of this digital‐only status by drawing on a large‐scale discrete choice experiment with private rented sector landlords, which shows that people with digital‐only immigration status are substantially penalised on the private rental market due to the form of their ID. We argue that this discrimination is not only troubling in substance but also arguably amounts to a breach of non‐discrimination and equal treatment provisions under the Withdrawal Agreement (Article 12 and Article 23 respectively). The apparent lack of effective enforcement points to the potential limits of such protections after Brexit.

Sharing risk in shared housing: rental regulations and housing justice in Australia

Shared housing in the private rental sector (PRS), where people rent with non-family, is becoming more significant across many countries. However, from a housing justice lens, it is unclear whether housing policies and regulations based on normative understandings of households are equipped to effectively support shared housing renters. Through a case study of Australia, which operates on a ‘consumer protection’ model of rental regulation, we ask how current Australian rental regulations enable or restrict housing justice for people in shared housing in the PRS. We conduct a critical discourse analysis of consumer-oriented tenancy information published by Australian state governments and identify explicit or implicit risks in the text that may be experienced by shared housing renters. Results indicate that risks in relation to finance, eviction, and disputes are variously not acknowledged within the text or responded to with warning, guidance, or stated inability to help. We argue that the unfair distribution of risk in shared households, coupled with the severity of the consequences, constitutes a form of housing injustice. We suggest how the consumer protection framework of rental regulation could be amended to advance housing justice and assist shared housing renters.

Do private rental tenants pay for energy efficiency?: The dynamics of green premiums and brown discounts

ABSTRACT The rental market, notably within the UK, is facing increased scrutiny with the tightening of regulation in relation to energy performance and the increases in energy costs and rental unaffordability. Whilst a sizeable volume of research has examined the pricing effects of EPCs and house prices, scrutiny of this relationship within the private rental sector remains more embryonic. This study, using 2,914 transactions for Northern Ireland, extends the traditional analysis beyond the conditional mean estimate by examining the quantiles of the relationship between EPCs and rental prices. The findings provide evidence of a rental premium of 0.2% for a one-point improvement in energy efficiency. In terms of EPC ratings, we find premiums for B- and C-rated dwellings of 8.2% and 2.4% and also discount effects for E, F and G-rated properties ranging between 3.9%-5.5%. The quantile findings exhibited a parabolic effect across the price distribution demonstrating the lowest and highest priced properties to comprise higher price premiums of 13% and 16% for B-rated dwellings, however more pronounced discount effects for F- and G-rated properties at the lowest and highest deciles. The findings provide evidence to help alleviate the split-incentive problem between landlords and tenants within the UK.

Discrimination in the time of digital real estate: Illustrating a rental schema in the Australian setting

Digital real estate technologies (Proptech) have rapidly become ubiquitous in many nations—including Australia—their presence reshaping how tenants, landlords and agents navigate private renting. How Proptech are mediated by regulatory settings and responses shapes their presence, impacting on their potential for both subtle and overt forms of discrimination. In this paper we draw on our Australian-based research to illustrate the utility of a rental schema to develop understandings of digital reconfigurations and their discrimination effects in the private rental sector. Our research sought to identify and examine discrimination against renters across the entire experience of renting—particularly in relation to new and emerging forms of discrimination arising from, or exacerbated by, digital technologies. By focusing on the experiences of renters, the schema that we employed inverts Proptech approaches that create and target new assets for financial extraction through the rental sector, instead recognising the discriminatory potential of such approaches. We signal the utility of this renter-experience-centred approach to examine the rental sector through a discrimination lens, and the real and potential role for regulation including, but not limited to, a focus on digital technologies. Incorporating research, alliance-building and advocacy into our schema bolsters its renter-centredness and reiterates the necessity of these efforts at housing justice for urgent regulatory reform. We point to our own nascent efforts in collaboration with Australian tenant advocacy groups—inspired by others—to use digital technologies to subvert embedded power imbalances that drive discrimination in Australia's private rental sector.

Hybrid housing models for older Australians: institutional framework and policy challenges

Older people seeking affordable housing in the mainstream housing tenures such as home ownership, private renting and social housing face increasing difficulties in accessing and remaining in appropriate housing. The mainstream housing tenures face pressure due to widening housing affordability problems in home ownership and the private rental sector in many advanced economies, exacerbated by declining investment in social housing. Hybrid housing models are often promoted as affordable and sometimes appropriate and adequate housing options for older people. These models combine aspects of ownership and renting in diverse ways, often posing challenges for tenure-based housing policies. Drawing on the case of Australia, the paper presents the findings of an institutional review of the production, consumption, management, and exchange of land lease communities, often marketed as a more affordable form of housing for older people compared to the more established hybrid form of retirement villages. Noting difficulties in scoping the size and significance of the land lease community sector from current data collections, we find (a) entry of large institutional investors risks undermining the relative affordability of the sector for older people; (b) security of occupancy is a critical policy issue and (c) concentration in rural areas raises concerns around risk of natural disasters and access to aged care and other services. These issues are often overlooked in housing policy and pose challenges for other policy domains including income support, social care, and health services.

Mediating access: unpacking the role of algorithms in digital tenancy application technologies

ABSTRACT Digital tenancy application technologies (DTATs) are becoming the dominant means through which renters in the private rental sector (PRS) apply for housing. These PropTech tools, which claim to streamline application processes to save renters and lessors time and effort, necessitate the collection of data. Though the collection of certain data – such as income and rental history – has long been a standard part of rental application processes, DTATs now facilitate the collection of additional data including social media activity, behavioural data, and more. Increasingly, DTATs offer the ability to ‘make sense’ of this data, evaluating applicants through the use of algorithms. Drawing on lessons from banking and insurance sectors, this article outlines how DTAT algorithms can reshape individuals’ access to essential services delivered through competitive markets. It explains how algorithmic processes can introduce and exacerbate the unfair and unlawful treatment of renters, which can result in significant harms. To identify, redress, and prevent these harms, I argue that it is crucially important to use shared terminology to describe how DTATs are collecting and using data. This article introduces a framework for understanding how algorithms ‘screen’ and ‘sort’ applicants based on the data that is collected through DTATs. The process of ‘sorting’ is further broken down into three categories – ‘scoring’, ‘rating’, and ‘ranking’. The article concludes by explaining how this framework can assist researchers and policymakers to identify, analyse and prevent harms that are catalysed, or exacerbated by DTATs.

The new ‘lettings agent’s window’: interface design and discrimination on online rental platforms

ABSTRACT Accessing the private rented sector is now an almost exclusively online activity. In the UK 96% of renters found their property from one of the four leading online rental platforms: Rightmove, SpareRoom, Zoopla or Gumtree. How the interfaces of these platforms are designed can impact on access to the private rented sector and facilitate (or minimise) discrimination against users. This paper proposes a typology of interface design choices in online rental platforms, examining their role in structuring content, sorting existing content, and facilitating user interactions. Through a comparative analysis of 3,336 listings on a leading rental platform before-and-after changes to its interface, the paper reveals that even minor design alterations can significantly influence market accessibility for recipients of housing benefit and therefore reduce or worsen discrimination against certain user groups. The findings offer insights into combating discrimination in the digital rental market and provides a typology for analysing interface design choices at play on online rental platforms.

Gentrification and the suburbanization of poverty: evidence from a highly regulated housing system

ABSTRACT There is growing evidence of a suburbanization of poverty in the context of accelerating gentrification, particularly in liberal housing systems. To what extent are similar processes occurring in highly regulated housing systems that undergo gentrification? To scrutinize this, we use a novel dataset covering all 997,497 residential relocations differentiated by household income and household type in the period between 2011 and 2018 for the case of Vienna, Austria. Drawing on GIS mapping and descriptive statistics, we find limited evidence of a systematic relocation of low-income households from gentrifying central areas or even to the suburbs, yet significantly higher mobility rates among this group. We argue, based on policy analysis and multivariate statistics, that this is a product of Vienna’s tenure segmented housing system. While the gentrifying private rental sector in the urban core is characterized by high levels of precarity, regularly pushing low-income residents to move house, entry barriers to other market segments “trap” many of them in this sector under insecure conditions. Our results raise broader questions about the context in the debate around gentrification and suburbanizing poverty and call for greater attention to detrimental impacts of gentrification on housing and life course trajectories of low-income residents without pronounced spatial displacement.

The repertoire of housing contention: the birth of the Stay Put campaign in Barcelona

Past research in the housing-movement literature has assumed a close link between the post-2008 cycle of housing financialization and the resurgence of housing contention in many Western democracies. However, the new cycle of capital accumulation fails to explain why housing movements privilege some strategic forms of contention over others, how tactical innovations occur, and what pathways they develop after cycles of protest. This article returns to the repertoire perspective to analyse the expansion of housing protest repertoires to tenants’ activism in Barcelona. It argues that the repertoire of housing contention has mediated relations between the new cycle of housing financialization and contentious interactions between tenants and landlords in Barcelona’s private-rental sector. Employing the case of the Sindicat de Llogateres (Tenants’ Union of Barcelona) and the Stay Put campaign, this article makes a twofold contribution to explain the transmission and transformation of the established repertoire in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Open Banking and data reassurance: the case of tenant referencing in the UK

ABSTRACT The promise of Open Banking (OB), as implemented in the UK, has been that consumers are no longer passive data producers but can also use and derive value from their personal data. OB has been applied predominantly to financial decision-making, payments and borrowing, and most of the existent literature has focused on its adoption in financial services. In this article, we examine its off-label adoption in tenant referencing, a sector rather neglected and that raises specific questions of distribution to essential goods. We draw on qualitative research from a research project examining algorithmic risk profiling in housing, comprising in-depth interviews with landlords, letting agents, tenants, referencing companies and other stakeholders in the private rented sector (PRS). Taking into account simultaneously consumers and professionals’ perspectives, we argue that OB adoption in tenant referencing is a calculative practice embraced due to offering a more streamlined application process, having a reassuring interface design and institutional validation. Such technical and social elements overlap on the specific power relations of the rental market that make in some situations OB less as an ‘opt-in’ option and more like a default setting when tenants feel that they do not have too much control over what data they want to share.

Pets and private renting: a rapid evidence review of the barriers, benefits, and challenges

Pet ownership or animal companionship is increasingly found to be beneficial to mental and physical well-being. Despite this, housing situations and tenure, such as living in a private rental, can impact the ability to realise these benefits. Pet ownership is seldom the primary focus of discussion in housing research to date. This paper brings this issue to the forefront of housing research, recognising it as a crucial component of the overall experience within the private rented sector (PRS). We present findings from a rapid evidence assessment of the existing international evidence to provide a broad understanding of pet ownership in the PRS and, based on this review, set out a novel typology of the economic costs and benefits of renting to pet-owners. The review involved scrutiny of 51 sources published after 2000, representing the most comprehensive evidence review of the subject to date. We identified the benefits, costs, and management practices associated with allowing pets in rentals across three key stages of the tenancy. This paper highlights the need for a combination of policy measures to facilitate the acceptance of pets in rental properties and sets out a future research agenda to better understand the experience of renting with pets.

Promoting the private rented sector in metropolitan China: key challenges and solutions

The private rented sector (PRS) plays an increasingly important role in accommodating young people and migrants in China’s metropolitan cities. However, the PRS in China is still underdeveloped, as evidenced by, e.g. a low degree of professionalisation, lack of basic rental laws and regulations, and poor housing experiences of tenants. The purpose of the current article is to identify the main challenges towards a well-functioning PRS, as perceived by Chinese local governments, landlords, and tenants, and to propose possible solutions to cope with these challenges. After reviewing both academic and grey literature and exploring the results of our previous research, we found that these challenges result from three main root causes, i.e. power imbalance between landlords and tenants, inadequate institutional arrangements, and path dependence on the past productivism model. Based on the analysis, a number of recommendations were proposed, including formalising the PRS, introducing regulations, setting minimum housing standards, and increasing public school availability to enhance equal citizenship rights between renters and homeowners.

Studentification and student wellbeing in the private rented sector: further reflections on Lynch et al.

Studentification and student wellbeing in the private rented sector: further reflections on Lynch et al.