Landlord and property developer Rob Stewart is on a mission to prompt a rethink of how to solve the housing crisis.

He’s building up his social media presence and developing a manifesto in the hope that policymakers will take notice. “We need to stop blaming each other and take a totally different approach,” explains Stewart, who reckons he has come up with a way to put the PRS back on its feet.

One of his solutions is a sovereign regeneration fund that puts public money alongside developers into conversions and pulls even more private capital in behind it. Through these partnerships, the state gets its money back plus a slice of the gain it helped create, he explains, which is then rolled into the next building. Instead of taxing capital as it leaves, the state puts capital in, as a partner, and takes its share of what gets built.

“This fund is a perfect way of creating social housing,” he tells LandlordZONE. “The state currently spends billions housing families in hotels and owns not a single brick at the end. We need to increase money to flow into brownfield regeneration and create a tax break for risky developments, guaranteeing an income stream for private developer and state.”

Focus

Stewart also suggests changing the focus from capping high rents to guaranteeing them – and away from headline rent roll and onto post-tax profit, citing the commercial sector, where investors are willing to take a low yield because of lower risk and a rock-solid tenant. He believes the concept translates to the residential market, whereby the state would sign guaranteed long-term leases directly with private landlords for social housing. In exchange, the landlord takes a lower rent - around 20% below the housing benefit rate – which offers them more certainty.

“The state already pays that landlord the full housing benefit rate for that tenant today. It’s paying it right now, with all the voids, arrears and turnover baked in,” explains Stewart.

Safe

“A safe, guaranteed income beats a bigger one you have to chase and might not get. This way, landlords heading for the exit have a reason to stay in the social market instead of selling up.”

Stewart, whose speciality is brownfield regeneration, has operated in the sector for 15 years and self-manages a mixture of HMOs blocks mixed-use, commercial and residential properties. He enjoys the job but is increasingly frustrated by the scarcity and expense of tradespeople and is tired of the vilification of landlords.

When a recent listing saw a queue of people desperate to secure one of his flats, he felt compelled to speak out. He’s hoping his ideas will add to the conversation around challenges in the PRS and stem the exodus of small landlords in favour of institutions who want to treat the sector as a commodity. “I can’t see that being great for tenants. The PRS still needs small landlords who keep rents reasonable and will fix your boiler on a Saturday morning.”

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