Should there be a limit on the number of homes you can own?

The research institute Centre for Cities says that the UK needs at least another four million homes. Years of house-price rises, high inflation and a shortage of housing stock have left many struggling to get on the property ladder. Meanwhile, 2.1 million households have additional homes, either for their own use or to rent out. Would an ownership cap on individual landlords help to solve the housing crisis? We seek opposing views.
Elyem Chej from the London Renters Union, a campaign groupWe are in the middle of a devastating housing crisis. Millions struggle to keep up with soaring rents, while a record number of children are forced to grow up in temporary accommodation.
This is because housing is no longer seen as a basic human need and is treated as a lucrative investment. A system where the wealthy accumulate properties has left many struggling to find a secure home.
It wasn’t always this way. Before the 1980s more than 40 per cent of the population lived in council housing. But since then social housing has been sold off with much of it falling into the hands of private landlords. Deregulation and the introduction of buy-to-let mortgages fuelled this shift, transforming our homes into assets.
Today more than two million landlords control the rental market and are able to outbid first-time buyers. Some 18 per cent of them own five or more properties and account for almost half all tenancies, according to the English Private Landlord Survey.
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This concentration of wealth leaves the 11 million private renters in England at the mercy of landlords who have the power to charge whatever they want. Rents have skyrocketed.
Living in a property that is someone else’s investment asset is tough. Many renters hand over a large proportion of their income to their landlords and live under constant threat of eviction. We know that at any moment our homes can be pulled from underneath us if it becomes more profitable for a landlord to sell or let it out to somebody else.
And then there are the almost half a million second homes in the UK — outstripping the number of homeless households — which leaves some rural communities hollowed out by properties that lie empty for much of the year.
How can we justify a system where a small minority hoards property while millions struggle to keep a roof over their heads? Capping the number of residential properties you can own wouldn’t solve everything, but it could help to rebalance a deeply unfair system which puts people over profits, and restore housing as a right, not a commodity.
Sajjad Ahmad, the chief executive of the British Landlords Association A homeownership cap would be a disaster for the economy and the housing market. Landlords are already leaving the sector and, as a consequence, rents have increased sharply in the past 18 months. Letting agents are now seeking bids above the rent guide, which is purely down to the limited number of rental properties available.
Private landlords may invest in the rental market with the intention of long-term property ownership, but limiting the number of properties would discourage such long-term investments. Instead of focusing on providing quality housing over a sustained period, landlords would liquidate their properties sooner, leading to volatility in the housing market. This could also encourage more speculative buying practices, worsening market stability.
Private landlords are a significant source of investment in the UK property market. They provide a steady flow of capital into the housing sector and this investment can help to improve housing stock through renovations and upgrades, as well as increasing the number of rental properties.
A cap would disincentivise this much-needed investment and exacerbate housing shortages.
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Many landlords in the UK are small or medium-scale investors who rely on property ownership as part of their retirement or investment strategy. A cap on property holdings would also unfairly penalise them by limiting their ability to grow their portfolio.
We face a growing demand for rental properties, especially in urban areas where homeownership is increasingly out of reach for many. A cap on how many properties landlords can hold would be likely to drive up rents. Private landlords often offer more flexible tenancy agreements than large institutional investors, providing more choice for tenants.
Restricting small landlords’ capacity to expand could force them out of the market, leaving room only for large corporations and institutional investors, who may not prioritise tenant welfare or property maintenance.