‘We All Live in a Robbie Fowler House’: The Geographies of the Buy to Let Market in the UK

The buy to let market, produced through the re-regulation of the private rented market in the late 1980s and the promotion of a new mortgage product by the Association of Residential Letting Agents and private sector lenders in the 1990s, accounted for 12 per cent of all UK mortgage lending by 2007. Buy to let is popularly understood as a vehicle for speculative investment and as a means for securing long-term financial security through capital gains via property, and it represents an important aspect of financialisation, helping to call forth new investor subjectivities, which promulgate individualised forms of financial responsibility. Buy to let was also a profitable income stream for financial institutions in the UK which outperformed the mainstream mortgage market until problems in this market became apparent. This article reports on research carried out on the buy to let market and draws attention to the highly geographical nature of the market, which has distinctive regional and urban geographies. These geographies help to explain the differing fortunes of the buy to let market.