Landlords who manage their own properties spend an average of 51 hours a month overseeing them.
Even those paying for full management by an agent are spending an average of 11 hours a month on admin.
The figures come from Pegasus Insight’s Landlord Trends research, which examines landlords’ use of letting agents and the time spent managing their portfolios.
Across all landlords, that time commitment averages 33 hours a month.
Property management workload
The firm’s director Bethan Cooke said: “Being a landlord has become an increasingly demanding responsibility, and the legislative and regulatory changes now facing the private rented sector are adding to that complexity.
“It is perhaps unsurprising that more landlords are choosing to seek professional support, particularly with the day-to-day management of their properties.”
She added: “The difference in the amount of time spent managing properties is striking.
“As the responsibilities associated with letting property become more complex, professional agents have an increasingly important role to play in helping landlords understand and meet their obligations, while ensuring tenants receive a professional and responsive service.”
Demand for letting agents
Research also shows that a quarter of properties now use a full management service, up five percentage points from 20% in the last quarter.
The increase has been the main driver behind agent involvement reaching its highest proportion in two years.
Some 66% of properties use an agent for at least part of the letting process, compared with 61% in the first quarter of 2026 and 62% a year earlier.
Finding tenants alone accounts for agent involvement at 34% of properties, while a further 6% use letting and rent collection services.
Larger landlords’ management choices
The monthly workload rises with portfolio size, from an average of 18 hours for landlords with one to five properties to 83 hours for those with 11 or more.
However, landlords with more buy to let mortgages are not necessarily more inclined to hand management to an agent.
Among those with four or more such mortgages, 39% of properties are self-managed, compared with 31% for borrowers with one to three mortgages and 33% for landlords without mortgage borrowing.
The research suggests their greater likelihood of operating full time may help explain this, with 37% of the larger borrower group working as full-time landlords, against 13% of smaller borrowers and 18% of those without mortgages.
