Internet property ‘experts’ claim they are earning huge sums of money from Britain’s asylum-seeker crisis, the Express can reveal.

As the number of migrants entering the UK reaches record levels and government spending on asylum accommodation hits £8 million a day, an online trend promoting the increased demand for state-funded housing as a business opportunity has emerged.

“There are thousands and thousands of people coming into this country by the boatload, and you can make loads of money just by housing them,” Steven Fontaine, who has over 300,000 followers on social media through his Fontaine Brothers accounts, tells viewers in one YouTube video titled ‘SOCIAL HOUSING / Game Changer in 2024?’

Speaking to the camera as he walks down a terraced street in Lancashire, Fontaine suggests there is an opportunity to cash in on a taxpayer bounty through a ‘rent-to-rent’ scheme that profits by flipping privately owned homes into social housing.

He tells viewers double-digit returns are possible because the government’s migrant hotel bill is “incentivising housing associations and social housing providers to house these people and they’ll pay an absolute fortune”.

Fontaine is just one of many self-styled online property gurus the Express found suggesting the asylum seeker housing crisis could be used to promote investment opportunities and who offer educational courses to their followers.

The wider social media trend also encourages people to embark on schemes that earn money from the shortage of social housing.

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson told the Express those using the migrant accommodation crisis as a business opportunity “should hang their heads in shame” after viewing a selection of the footage available online.

“They’re making a lot of money out of people’s misery,” he added. “They’re capitalising on the people smuggling trade. Meanwhile, the average Brit on the street is paying for all this.

“People’s lives are at risk, [they] are dying in the Channel and [to be] making money out of that is absolutely appalling.

“In the Second World War there were ‘spivs’, who wouldn’t do their duty for king and country, and instead made profit out of the war selling dodgy stuff and ration books. This is a similar sort of business model [where] they’re making a lot of money from the misery of people being trafficked. It’s disgusting, I’d get them locked up.”

Chris Bailey, campaigns manager for the charity Action on Empty Housing, believes the investors following influencers’ advice were “putting themselves in the place of a slum landlord in the early part of the 20th century” by seeking to profit from taxpayers’ money being spent on migrant accommodation.

“They’re marketing it as an opportunity to basically exploit people’s misfortune and to exploit the fact that as a country we don’t have adequate social housing to accommodate the people that we are saying we have a duty to [house],” he said.

“To put the whole of that in the context of something that’s politically explosive and marketing it as money-making opportunity is deeply morally questionable.”

Bailey added that none of this would be possible without social media.

He said: “The notion of an influencer who’s suggesting a very exploitative, immoral business model to exploit the public purse would have been a lot more difficult to do in the past. They might have got story in the national press if they were particularly lucky. But it is questionable in terms of, you know, how the platforms enable them to promote that.”

In addition to the rent-to-rent schemes, more measured property influencer videos highlight the benefits of signing a long-term lease arrangement with a Government asylum accommodation provider. It is not suggested they were motivated by any influencer videos.

One example is the married YouTube duo ‘The Property Couple’, who film themselves renovating properties, including one that will be handed over to Serco, which has a £1.9 billion ten-year contract with the Home Office on a five-year contract.

Responding to the issues raised in this piece, a Home Office spokesperson said: “This government inherited an asylum system under unprecedented strain, with thousands stuck in a backlog without their claims processed.

“We remain absolutely committed to working with local stakeholders to find more suitable accommodation options which provide best value for the taxpayer.”

A Serco spokesman said: “Over the past few years, Serco has been a significant procurer of accommodation for asylum seekers, and we have gained a great deal of experience and expertise in this field.

“Consequently, we have a strong understanding of property market rates, and we are confident that we are paying fair rates to ensure that value for money is achieved. We carry out full due diligence to ensure that all the property we use meets the Home Office required standards and it is regularly inspected by both Serco and the Home Office.”

The Express repeatedly attempted to speak to the Fontaine Brothers for this story. We visited their offices in Bournemouth, where we spoke to a man who said he worked with them. He took our number and then phoned someone as he looked at us in the car park. But our follow-up phone calls and text messages received no response.

The Property Couple did not wish to be interviewed for this piece and have not responded to our subsequent requests for comment.