The issue of private landlordism in Britain touches a raw political
nerve. There is no shortage of prescription as to what should be done
with the rented housing market and private landlords. Yet surprisingly
little is known about the structure and diversity of private landlordism
and the variety of private tenants' housing needs - a prerequisite for
policy intervention. This book provides an anatomy of the nature of
private landlordism in the 1980s, the types of landlord in the market,
the scope of their activities, and the choices and constraints that
guide their actions in the market. It shows how the pattern of change in
the private rented sector has been not one of straightforward decline,
but one of structural unevenness shaped by a combination of three
general processes - disinvestment, investment and informalization -
which vary in impact from place to place. Adopting a realist
methodological approach, the authors attempt to capture both the general
characterisation of landlordism and the processes shaping the private
rental sector and their diverse geographical form across space and
through time. This approach is illustrated by an extensive investigation
in two local housing markets in inner London. Finally, the authors
examine the scope for change in the private rented sector and argue for
a combination of public and private initiatives that is sensitive to the
differences among local housing markets and that relates to the
demands/needs of those groups at present dependent on private renting
for accommodation.