This hotels saga isn't really about asylum seekers: it's a window on to a far bigger scandal | Gaby Hinsliff

"The TikToker Luigi Newton, who says he started out working in a call centre and now manages a string of mostly social housing properties remotely from overseas, is just one of a new breed of landlord influencers boasting about the supposedly rich pickings to be made from buying up and renovating cheap housing to rent to social housing providers, ensuring a steady, hassle-free stream of government-backed income dropping into their accounts."

"In one video, Newton admits he's had flak online because one of his main clients is the outsourcing giant Serco, which mostly houses refugees: to him that's a good thing, he says earnestly, because he feels he's really helping people who need housing in desperate circumstances. But, perhaps more to the point for some of his followers, he reckons it's more lucrative than renting to working professionals, thanks to the way the leases work."

"If there's something disturbing about seeing Britain's asylum crisis framed as a get-rich-quick scheme, TikTok landlords are in many ways the least of anyone's problems. They're just small fry, the most visible and least subtle end of a much bigger corporate phenomenon; an under-examined corner of the property market, responding perfectly logically to the incentives inadvertently created by a blundering state."

Luigi Newton, a TikTok landlord influencer, promotes earning a millionaire lifestyle by buying and renovating cheap housing to rent to social housing providers while managing properties remotely from overseas. He highlights outsourcing firms such as Serco, which house refugees, as lucrative clients because government-backed leases deliver steady, hassle-free income compared with private tenants. A wider market of small landlords and corporate intermediaries has expanded to exploit these incentives. The trend reflects failures in government contracting and immigration accommodation policy. A Conservative-chaired home affairs select committee concluded the Home Office wasted potentially billions of taxpayers' pounds on a 10-year contract. The situation centers on political and contractual dysfunction rather than asylum seekers.

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