The pace of landlords leaving the rental market is set to accelerate sharply, with 27.1 per cent planning to quit buy-to-let entirely within three years, a major survey has found. Experts warn the retreat risks handing Britain’s rental stock to corporate operators, with tenants left to pick up the bill.
The findings come from a survey of 2,096 landlords by Property118, the Norwich-based community and news hub for landlords, which points to punitive taxation and the Renters’ Rights Act as the forces driving investors out.
Seven sellers for every buyer
The survey paints a picture of a sector already in retreat. Over the past two years, 53.8 per cent of landlords say their portfolio has stayed roughly the same size, while 40.2 per cent have been shrinking through sales. Just 6 per cent have been growing.
The forward-looking numbers are starker. Over the next three years, 67.7 per cent of landlords expect to sell some properties or exit the sector entirely, against fewer than one in ten (9.5 per cent) planning to buy.
Alongside the 27.1 per cent intending to leave altogether, 40.6 per cent plan to sell one or more properties. Only 22.8 per cent expect their portfolio to be unchanged in three years’ time. The figures echo separate forecasts that 220,000 rental homes could vanish from the private rented sector in 2026 alone.
Mark Alexander, founder of Property118, said: “The worrying number isn’t simply that 27% of landlords are considering leaving altogether. It’s that for every landlord planning to buy, more than seven are planning to sell properties or exit.
“Not every intention will become a sale, of course, but that imbalance should concern policymakers. If rental supply continues to contract while demand remains strong, tenants will ultimately feel it through less choice, greater competition for homes and further upward pressure on rents.”
The corporate giant moves in
For Thomas George, director at Sussex estate agency Mansell McTaggart, the survey heralds a seismic shift in who owns Britain’s rental homes.
“The small landlord is leaving, the corporate giant is moving in and nobody’s talking about it,” he said. “While 40% of landlords shrink their portfolios and 27% plan to exit entirely, a handful of well-capitalised companies are quietly hoovering up discounted stock at scale.
“This isn’t coincidence. This is strategy. We are sleepwalking into the monopolisation of the British rental market. Corporate landlords with a factory approach who are soulless, standardised and transactional.
“The personal landlord who knew your name and hadn’t raised your rent in three years? Gone. Replaced by a call centre and a rent review clause.”
The Government, he added, “set out to protect tenants. They may have handed their homes to the very people tenants should fear most.” The professionalisation trend is already visible in the record numbers of buy-to-let landlords moving into company structures.
Tenants set to pay the price
The supply squeeze is arriving in an already expensive market. Average UK private rent rose 3.3 per cent to £1,388 in the year to June 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics, while the RICS residential market survey continues to show landlord instructions falling as tenant demand rises.
Babek Ismayil, chief executive of homebuying platform OneDome, said: “Tenants in many areas of the country are already facing extremely steep rents. If more landlords decide to leave the sector and rental supply falls, that could put further pressure on rents.”
Nouran Moustafa, practice principal and IFA at Roxton Wealth, said the findings reflect what advisers are already seeing. “Landlords aren’t leaving because demand has disappeared, they’re leaving because the numbers increasingly don’t stack up,” she said.
“Ironically, measures designed to improve affordability could make renting more expensive if supply continues to shrink.”
What this means for investors
Moustafa’s conclusion is the one investors should sit with: “The future of buy-to-let will increasingly belong to well-capitalised, professional landlords, while smaller investors may continue to exit unless the economic and regulatory environment becomes more balanced.”
For those staying in, the direction of travel favours scale, incorporation and adaptation. Brokers report growing interest in diversifying into semi-commercial property, and landlords who remain will need to get serious about compliance under the Renters’ Rights Act. A shrinking pool of rivals and rising rents may yet reward the landlords who hold their nerve.
