Rental market shrinks despite government claims private rented sector is expanding

This may be the peak but it will have a long tail as landlords with good tenants will reconsider when those tenants leave.
Or possibly there will be a second peak if the looney left insist on EPC levels incompatible with making a profit.

Ministers can keep shouting about the PRS expanding until there are only thousands of corporate executive flats and one tatty family home left. Renters wringing their hands and Generation Rant desperate for a reason for funding while ex landlords are off doing something else.

The trouble is we probably have a million more people since early 2000 which is one of the reasons there is a shortage of houses. There is an easy solution – build more homes and encourage more people to enter the rental market as landlords. The government have failed miserably on both these fronts. The only relief is coming from immigration slowing down and the country in such a mess so that more people will be leaving!

“The private rented sector has doubled in size since the early 2000s”
Lies, damned lies and statistics. They keep trotting out this completely useless and meaningless statistic. We all know that the PRS peaked in 2015/16 … it has since been in decline due to endless Govt interference and meddling. During that period the rental population has increased, hence the crisis we are in. Sticking your head in the sand, backside in the air, and just lying to those that house 11 million people and know the truth will not fix the problem. In fact it will just add fire.

Reply to the comment left by Jack Jennings at 11/05/2026 – 20:01
Generation rant…. Brilliant..

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 08:57
So much to say on this topic, mate.
Firstly, we all know the previous government didn’t like the expansion of the PRS. We felt the back of their metaphorical taxation hand through stamp duty and tax at gross.
Now Labour are finishing the job. The Renter’s Rights Act, in tandem with ‘Making tax Digital’ (total pain in the a*** for small landlords), and the ludicrous, across the board, minimum EPC ‘C’ rating (which will be completely unatainable for many properties, or cost prohibitive) will drive the more risk averse landlords out of the system.
Now, if a government’s plan is to cause mass homelessness, on a scale never before seen, then this is a great set of policies.
Council / social housing at many councils is already overwhelmed. Emergency housing is completely full. There is an enormous waiting list – I know this by virtue of my employment – and, they already spend millions a year on hotels for short term, emergency provision.
I have a leasehold apartment in a block with a communal boiler. The heating and hot water are in the rent. I pay the service charge. The rent is below market price. The only reason I haven’t offloaded this property is that I know the tenant. I will have to remove them in 2030 as it is an EPC rating of D. Short of internal wall insulation – daft as there is a flat either side – or roof cavity insulation – difficult as it is leasehold and i dont ‘own’ this space – there is very little else i can do to increase its EPC category. This would cost upwards of £10k to try to do, then add the inconvenience to the tenant, the reduced internal space, the need for redecoration, plastering, new skirting, new carpets, potential for alterations to bathrooms and kitchens due to wall dimensional changes. Then, of course, there are no decent builders available anyway! These fools haven’t a clue.
The outcome? A perfectly happy tenant will be hoofed out to go and pay more elsewhere, probably in a substandard property to mine, and will then have to pay their own heating and hot water, all because of ‘green initiatives’.
Well done to the trotskyites!
It’s a completely insane approach to policy.

Rental section will never be the same with discouraging news to give free ride to awkawrd trouble maker tenants and further taking away investment tool which was to make profit to re invest .
JOE

Come July and August, all the landlords that have issued section 21 notices just before the beginning of May deadline will very likely be having to issue court summons. That’s when the government will no longer be able to swiftly brush it all under the carpet. The next two years will see the courts and bailiffs in for a record breaking busy time.
Well done Labour. All those people will be homeless.