Private Renting After the Global Financial Crisis

Analyses of the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on housing have largely focused on subprime mortgages and homeownership. By contrast, the impact of the financial crisis on the private rented sector has received much less attention. This paper helps to address that gap by examining the impact of the GFC on private renting in Britain. In recent years, the private rented sector (PRS) in Britain has grown in size after many years of decline; and the formal rules and informal practices that characterize this tenure have also changed significantly. This transformation began during the 1990s but the pace of change increased from the turn of the century and accelerated still further during the GFC. Drawing on an historical institutional perspective, it shows that the changes to private renting over this period were shaped not only by domestic events but also by developments in the international political economy.