Same landlords, louder warning, two quarters of data the government won’t hear
by Dave Fuller
For the first time, the Property118 Landlord Sentiment Survey has something it never had before: a like-for-like comparison. Two quarters in, the message is not that landlords are in trouble. It is that they have made a decision.
When more than 2,000 landlords answered the same questions three months apart, the striking finding was not how much had changed, but how little. The shape of the sector barely moved between Q1 and Q2. What moved was the mood.
The fundamentals held firm
Almost everything that describes who these landlords are stayed remarkably steady. Ownership structures scarcely shifted, with around six in ten still holding property in their personal names. Gearing remained conservative: close to three in ten landlords have no mortgage at all, and roughly four in ten are either mortgage-free or geared below 30% loan-to-value. Only around 9% are geared above 70%.
The tenant mix held too. Working tenants continue to dominate the sector by a wide margin, and self-management remains the most common approach, even if a few more landlords have begun handing the work to agents.
This is not a picture of a sector on the edge of collapse. It is a picture of a financially resilient sector with substantial equity buffers. That resilience matters, because it explains why the widely predicted wave of forced sales never arrived.
So why are they leaving?
Here is the point. If landlords were being forced out by financial distress, we would expect to see it in the gearing figures and in rising arrears. We do not. These landlords are not being pushed out. A growing number are choosing to leave.
Between Q1 and Q2, pessimism about property values deepened, the intention to sell or exit strengthened, and the single biggest incentive that would tempt landlords back, a reversal of Section 24, remained exactly where it was: unaddressed.
That distinction, distress versus decision, is the whole story. A sector in temporary difficulty waits for confidence to return. A sector making a considered judgement does not. It acts.
The comparison is itself the finding
A single survey tells you what landlords think on one day. Two surveys, asked identically, tell you the direction of travel. And the direction is one in which caution is hardening into something more permanent.
It is worth being clear about what this data is not. It is not the voice of a handful of disgruntled operators. The respondents are overwhelmingly UK tax resident, they own real portfolios, and between them they represent tens of thousands of tenancies. When they say, quarter after quarter, that they are more likely to sell than to buy, that is a supply signal worth taking seriously.
A message policymakers keep ignoring
The government has form for looking past its own evidence. Its own English Housing Survey showed that landlord-led endings were a minority of tenancy endings before the Renters’ Rights Act came into force. Its own impact assessments have conceded added costs for landlords from Making Tax Digital. And now an independent quarterly tracker is showing, in consistent numbers, that the private rented sector is contracting by choice.
The tenants these landlords house will need somewhere else to go. Social housing waiting lists are already at record levels, and housebuilding remains well short of target. A shrinking private rented sector does not make that problem smaller.
The message from two quarters of data is the same as the message from one, only louder. Without meaningful reform, or at the very least a pause in the pace of change, the supply of privately rented homes looks set to keep contracting. We will keep asking these questions every quarter. The question is whether anyone in a position to act is listening.
Comments
Have Your Say
Every day, landlords who want to influence policy and share real-world experience add their voice here. Your perspective helps keep the debate balanced.
Not a member yet? Join In Seconds
Login with
Member Since November 2017 - Comments: 265
10:07 AM, 27th July 2026, About 6 days ago
Other factors, I’d suggest, that are stopping the sale of rental properties and or their purchase, is the market is becoming flooded with 1/2 bed properties and interest rates are uncertain. My experience in the local area, is prices have dropped by about 10% in the last 6 months.
Member Since January 2024 - Comments: 393
11:30 AM, 27th July 2026, About 6 days ago
The market around London seems bad at the moment due to Iran war, interest rates, etc., so I am temporarily holding off selling in the hope that market rates will improve.
However, whatever happens, I will want to be out before the EPC rating fiasco kicks in.
Member Since October 2013 - Comments: 1681 - Articles: 3
11:32 AM, 27th July 2026, About 6 days ago
I’m looking to sell a very nice, well located, 2-bed flat, and that will be the end of my 25 year landlord journey. All the numbers stack up well, especially if no or low mortgage is needed, except it’s leasehold. That shouldn’t matter because the lease has many years to go, and the reforms will happen in due course, but the valuation is 50% lower than what I paid in 2007.
I’ve had enough of BTL and will accept the loss to get out once and for all.
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 2278
5:08 PM, 27th July 2026, About 6 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Tim Rogers at 27/07/2026 – 10:07
The Daily Express just reported that the number of UK millionaires has slumped to its lowest level since the end of the financial crisis:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2233423/labour-slammed-uk-millionaires-lowest
The point of the article being that if the number of millionaires goes down then the tax take goes down; but the other important point is that this is loss of investment in the UK economy. These days you don’t have to be a captain of industry to qualify as a millionaire….your principle private residence will get you there. If Andy Burnham goes ahead with his proposal to tax assets (I’ve heard various reports from 0;.48% to 1.0%) then he will cause a slump in asset values as investors pull their money out and take it elsewhere. You don’t raise much in capital gains tax if you cause the value of assets to slide and if you continually tax assets and spend without generating economic growth you get yourself into a vicious, downward spiral of declining asset values.
If Andy Burnham drives investment out of the economy and causes a slide in asset values it is the families who own the lowest portion of their family home who stand to lose the most. If you have a mortgage and you presently own 10-20% of your house with the bank owning the rest and somebody in government causes a drop in house prices to e.g. 80% of what they were before, then you lose the net after-tax gain from all those years of hard work….possibly you may lose what are in effect your life-savings…. the bank loses nothing, the people in the public sector still get their generous public sector pensions.
Compared to how things used to be, lots of normal, working people can move the value of their assets out of the UK and possibly retire somewhere else. They can sell their houses to move the cash out of the UK and buy a retirement property in a country that wants retirees, and they can move their pensions there too. When Rachel Reeves included pensions in the inheritance tax net she attacked families’ principle private residences together with the pensions of the senior family members. In other countries that people might wish to retire to they either have lower rates of inheritance tax, or inheritance tax is zero for family members. Not necessarily something that you have to worry about if you have a generous public sector pension but a very serious attack on your family’s net worth if your life and circumstances didn’t give you access to that privilege.
You don’t get more housing by penalising investors for investing in housing. Due to a series of government attacks the after tax return from investing in residential property in the UK is lower than you can get more easily with less risk and less effort by investing elsewhere.
Member Since April 2022 - Comments: 138
7:33 PM, 27th July 2026, About 6 days ago
The findings seem to describe me. I still have a buy to let portfolio worth a few million. I don’t have mortages. Everyday I question why I am still in this business. I know that I want out. The returns are pathetic and the hassle is ridiculous. It is not a pleasant sector to operate in anymore. The reason I haven’t sold more than I have (some are gone) is literally that I have decent families as tenants in decent houses and I don’t want to kick them out and uproot their lives. Simple as that.
One thing is really certain though, whether “hold” or “sell” at the moment, I am so far away from “buy” that I don’t see that ever changing. That means no more employing teams of peope and spending small fortunes refurbishing places etc. Is that good?
Member Since October 2013 - Comments: 1681 - Articles: 3
7:05 AM, 28th July 2026, About 5 days ago
Reply to the comment left by JamesB at 27/07/2026 – 19:33
Why aren’t you looking to sell with tenants in situ? If I was still investing, I would be reassured knowing I was getting a good tenant.
Member Since January 2023 - Comments: 338
2:41 PM, 28th July 2026, About 5 days ago
Reply to the comment left by JamesB at 27/07/2026 – 19:33
May be too late to sell now for all of us.
A bit of history…
CGT WAS 40% with taper relief, then went to18% during 2008 crash, then up to 28% then down to 24% and nailed in WILL go to 40%. So if you sell now that’s an extra 16% tax we’ll be paying so Burnham will want to raise the barriers to sell for LLs hence lock supply into the market!!! But ultimately 40% CGT will stagnate the market and HMRC will get less tax in it coffers so this will just backfire on socialist Burnham(younger version of Kinnock).
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 2278
3:00 PM, 28th July 2026, About 5 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Crouchender at 28/07/2026 – 14:41
If Andy Burnham and a bunch of socialist mates really go after assets on a left-wing ideological crusade and cause the value of assets to slide, it isn’t the ‘rich’ people who will suffer. The rich people will already have left. The people who will lose the greatest portion of their net worth are the families who spent years trying to raise the deposit for a house, and then spent years trying to get to the point where they perhaps own 20-30% of their house. A left-wing, full-on asset-grab could easily wipe out all those years of hard work.
It is the most hard working families who will suffer the damage from the crusade…not the rich.
Member Since October 2013 - Comments: 1681 - Articles: 3
5:58 PM, 28th July 2026, About 5 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Crouchender at 28/07/2026 – 14:41
Taxes on ‘wealth’ never work. Those who were thinking of selling but don’t really need to sell, will change their behaviour, and not sell… until a sensible government is returned that understands ‘growth’. Therefore, no extra tax. That applies to all types of assets. I would have thought Labour would know by now after Reeves’ budget, where CGT was increased. They will not have taken as much tax as they hoped for.
Member Since April 2022 - Comments: 138
6:43 AM, 29th July 2026, About 4 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Crouchender at 28/07/2026 – 14:41
I believe they may try 40%/45% but at that point, unless they reintroduce indexation allowance or similar I simply won’t sell. I expect a lot of other people won’t either. Ultimately that will reduce the tax take and gum up the market so the rate would probably end up being reduced again.
Whilst it is hard to avoid income tax, politicians always seem to forget that we are not born “landlords” and don’t have to be landlords. It is far easier in most cases to stop being a landlord than it is to stop being a tenant. In the same way, CGT is a choice. I did the maths carefully on the ones that I have sold over the last few years. I expect a level of tax. If it is stupid it will be 0.