Does locality make a difference? The impact of housing allowance reforms on private landlords

Housing subsidies are used by developed welfare states to ensure their citizens can access decent and affordable housing. This paper assesses the relative importance of individual and area level factors on the degree to which private sector landlords were affected by changes to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in the UK. The changes were part of the Government’s package of measures to reform LHA and reduce the welfare benefit bill. Multi-level modelling techniques have been applied to a longitudinal survey of 788 private sector landlords who had LHA tenants in 19 Local Authorities across GB. The analysis shows that whilst landlords were affected by reforms, area effects were not as pronounced as anticipated. In general landlords were equally affected regardless of where they operate. The findings suggest tenants in the most affected areas have absorbed increases in their rent shortfall signifying income was not the overriding determinant of demand. KEY WORDS; Housing Allowances, Private rented sector, Welfare reform, Area effects