  The homological properties of localizations and completions of metabelian
groups are studied. It is shown that, for $R=\mathbb Q$ or $R=\mathbb Z/n$ and
a finitely presented metabelian group $G$, the natural map from $G$ to its
$R$-completion induces an epimorphism of homology groups $H_2(-,R)$. This
answers a problem of A.K. Bousfield for the class of metabelian groups.
