“The private rental sector over the last 20 years alone has grown by nearly 2.8mn homes, a staggering 129 per cent increase.
“If you look at the relative proportion of homeownership in the last 20 years, it has actually declined by nearly 6 per cent.
“Far from creating a nation of homeowners, we have in fact created a nation of landlords."
Increasing the number of institutionally owned homes, whether bought or built, would alleviate much of the homelessness pressure, Lancaster argued.
“Since the inception of the right to buy in Greater Manchester, 92,000 of homes that were in the social sector have been sold.
“If these homes had been still held by the social sector, and we assume an average residency of 10 years, this would create over 9000 vacant homes a year. equivalent to the temporary housing demand last year.
“Even if it is in the long term interests of the sustainability of the market. The sector needs vast institutional investment.”
“And as long as we are trying as a country to drive wealth creation through homeownership. We are always going to have these issues.”
Samantha Downes is a freelance financial journalist
