UNSW, The NSW Federation of Housing Associations and Frasers Property, would like to invite you to attend our forthcoming seminar Unpacking the Private Rental Investment Boom in the UK and Australia.

Abstract

Declining home ownership and an expanding private rental sector have been dominant global trends over the past decade. In Australia, this pattern has seen private rental expand from 21% of all households to 26% in the ten years to 2013/14. Albeit from a lower base, the UK’s private rental sector (PRS) has expanded even more rapidly – from 10% to 18% over a similar period. Prodigious amounts of capital have been ploughed into rental property acquisition as investor landlords have expanded their holdings across housing markets of many kinds. Drawing on recently completed and currently ongoing research, this symposium will explore some of the underlying drivers of this trend, its institutional nature and its urban spatial embodiment.

Chair: Jacob Saulwick (City Editor, Sydney Morning Herald)

Professor Peter Kemp (Oxford University) – Private rental revival: An international political economy perspective

Professor Peter Williams (Cambridge University) – Rebuilding the rented sector in the UK; The role of Buy to Let, Build to Rent and Housing Associations

Professor Kath Hulse (Swinburne University) – Institutional change in Australia’s private rental sector

Professor Hal Pawson (UNSW) – The changing geography of private rental investment in Sydney: Work in progress

Presenter profiles

Peter Kemp is Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His previous academic career included professorial posts at the University of York and the University of Glasgow. Peter’s research interests include private rental housing, housing allowances, welfare reform and homelessness. Recent books include Transforming Private Landlords: housing, markets and public policy (2011, with Tony Crook), and Private Rental Housing: comparative perspectives (2014, with Tony Crook). Peter was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2011.

Professor Peter Williams is Executive Director of the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association and former Director of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research. Peter’s earlier roles include Deputy Director General of the Council of Mortgage Lenders and Professor of Housing, Cardiff University. He also served as a board member at Thames Valley Housing Group, the Housing Corporation and the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit. Early in his academic career, Peter was a research fellow at ANU, Canberra, and has maintained close connections with the Australian housing policy and research communities ever since.

Kath Hulse is research professor in housing studies at Swinburne University and Director of the University’s newly-established Centre for Urban Transitions. Kath’s primary research interest is in the restructuring of housing and social policies in the context of economic, social, political and cultural change. She has published extensively on these topics. And, as a renowned housing policy expert, she is a frequent contributor to mainstream media analysis of related topics. Prior to her academic career, Kath also had high level experience in policy development, research and program management in government.

Hal Pawson joined UNSW in 2011 as a Professor of Housing Research and Policy and as Associate Director of the City Futures Research Centre. Hal's key interests include the governance and management of social housing, private rental housing and urban renewal. Both in his current role and previously at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University (1995-2011), Hal has extensive experience in leading policy-related housing research. Hal is also Managing Editor (Australasia) for the international academic journal Housing Studies.

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Unpacking the Private Rental Investment Boom in the UK and Australia