After the turbulence caused by Donald Trump’s tariffs, much of the talk in financial markets has been about “safe havens” for investments amid dicey outlooks. US Treasury bonds may be losing their secure reputation, the euro might gain one, and gold is still the calmest water.

But there are still bull markets to be found: Britain’s immigration system, for instance. Last week, the Telegraph reported that the Home Office is actively appealing to landlords to house asylum seekers after a record surge in small-boat arrivals.

Private contractor Serco is offering landlords guaranteed five-year rental agreements to provide accommodation. In a bid to drum up interest, the company has organised an event at a four-star hotel in the Malvern Hills, targeting landlords, investors, and agents with properties in the North West, Midlands, and East of England. Its pitch is simple and compelling: guaranteed rent every month, full property maintenance, free management services, and all utilities and council tax bills covered. It’s a near risk-free investment. Following media reports, on Sunday the Home Office distanced itself from the scheme, adding: “We are restoring order to the asylum system and cutting costs to taxpayers by reducing the number of people we are required to accommodate.”

Yet Channel crossings continue to spiral. The number of migrants arriving in Britain via small boats hit a record high for the first four months of 2025, and crossings are predicted to exceed 50,000 for the first time this year. The latest Home Office data shows that spending on the 38,000 asylum seekers in hotels in December last year cost £5.5 million a day; housing migrants in private rentals is dramatically cheaper than using hotels, costing the Government as little as £14 a night compared to about £145 per night for hotel stays.

While, in theory, illegal immigrants have no recourse to public funds, those who claim asylum — even if they arrived illegally — are placed on a different track, receiving accommodation, healthcare, education, and a weekly cash allowance of around £50. Around 99% of those who arrive via small boats claim asylum.

But while the spending might be a less egregious waste of taxpayers’ money, moving migrants to houses marks a far more serious violation of the social contract. Britain is struggling desperately with a housing crisis that particularly hits the young and working-age population. They bear the highest tax burden since the Second World War, with no lightening of the load in sight. Their taxes bolster Government-supported housing of non-contributory migrants, either in the short term as asylum housing or the long term as social housing. Housing is increasingly becoming a spark in the migration debate, with migrants now handed the keys to literal houses within a few weeks or months of arrival. This will only help the cause of restrictionism by making the sheer unfairness of the system harder to deny.

With house prices now reaching over eight times average salaries, the contract between citizen and state — in which individuals contribute all their lives in return for support when needed — is increasingly valueless for those paying in. How long can a system endure when the Government is using taxpayers’ money to buy private rental homes, outbidding its own citizens, just to offer free accommodation to unvetted asylum seekers in neighbourhoods British families are priced out of. The inexorable absurdity of it bends to collapse.

Serco’s offering will work in saving the state money on housing asylum seekers. But in the long term, the costs are still astronomical. Despite its promises, Labour has failed to “smash the gangs” by reducing a single pull factor and, when attitudes to migration in Europe are hardening, offering free houses to new arrivals is only likely to increase flows. They have yet to be staunched.

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Tom Jones writes at The Potemkin Village Idiot.

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