There is nothing Belfast City Council can do to to stop property developers and landlords bulk-buying houses and converting them into HMOs (Houses of Multiple Occupation).

This information was relayed during a grim but fascinating exchange at a council committee last week.

DUP councillor Ruth Brooks pointed out that individual family homes in her east Belfast constituency are being purchased as a portfolio - six or seven properties in different locations, for example - then put onto the rental market as HMOs.

Many are bought with cash, elbowing out ordinary buyers and leaving families with nowhere to rent or buy.

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The profits to be made from HMOs are driving up prices and rents for everyone.

As Cllr Brooks explained, a terraced house in Belfast that would have rented for £950 a month will make £2,600 if the roof space is converted and four rooms are rented separately for £650 each.

Officials replied that the council’s only power over this process is the licensing of HMOs, a function Belfast City Council administers for all councils in Northern Ireland.

To obtain a licence, HMOs must meet certain standards and not exceed 10% of properties in most areas, or 20% in designated high-density areas.

Although councillors in Belfast and elsewhere have been pushing back against licence applications, landlords are becoming more successful at having rejections overturned through the Planning Appeals Commission.

In any legal battle the side with the most money has a decisive advantage.

That side will increasingly be the landlords as they become larger, richer and more professional.

The emergence of portfolio investors shows where this trend is heading.

Immigration is often linked to the proliferation of HMOs, especially since asylum seekers have been moved out of hotels.

However, the main driver is a home-grown issue with the benefits system, as a council official explained.

Any single person under 35 is only entitled to the shared accommodation rate for universal credit.

“For that cohort, HMOs are one of the only viable options they have,” he told councillors.

Over-35s can claim for a one-bedroom property but these are in desperately short supply in Northern Ireland.

Such properties make up barely 20% of the social housing stock and 10% of the private rental stock, yet they are needed by nearly half the people on the waiting list.

There is also high unmet demand for one-bedroom housing from private renters and buyers, including young professionals and the retired.

The impact of this shortage ripples out through the entire housing market.

HMOs are a symptom of it to a considerable degree, functioning as a safety net for everyone who cannot find their preferred accommodation.

The most frustrating aspect of this problem is that Stormont sought out and received an opportunity to fix it.

When universal credit was introduced in 2013 it caused a crisis in the Executive, largely because the so-called bedroom tax – or under-occupancy charge – was considered excessively unfair in Northern Ireland due to our lack of one-bedroom housing.

The political crisis was resolved in the 2015 Fresh Start Agreement with a four-year, £585 million welfare mitigation package.

It was understood that Stormont would use this time to start addressing the shortage by building more one-bedroom social homes and encouraging the private sector to do the same.

Small flats and houses are less profitable for developers, so government must provide sticks and carrots to increase the supply.

Of course, this never happened. Two collapses of devolution and the pandemic meant a housing supply strategy was not published until 2024, by which time house-building has fallen to historic lows.

Bedroom tax mitigation was extended in 2020 and made permanent two years later, at an annual cost to Stormont of about £25 million.

Tragically, if this money was spent on building one-bedroom social homes, it would make an enormous dent in the problem.

It would be enough to deliver 300 units per year, assuming the usual practice where Stormont pays half and housing associations fund the remainder.

To meet demand for social housing of all sizes, Northern Ireland needs to build 500 more units per year than it is presently managing.

The same parties sit in councils and at Stormont, so there is a limit to how much they can complain in the former while failing in the latter.

The DUP controls the Department for Communities, responsible for benefits and housing.

Sinn Féin insisted on bedroom tax mitigation, although all parties back it.

Sinn Féin also controls the Departments of Finance and Infrastructure, both vital to housebuilding.

There is plenty they could do if they were willing to do it.

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