Estimated number of Landlords falls to 7 year low

10:40 AM, 19th February 2020, About 5 years ago 4

Text Size

Hamptons International’s monthly lettings index shows that the number of landlords in the private rental sector (PRS) has fallen to a seven-year low. Over the last two years the rental sector in Great Britain has shrunk with the total number of privately rented homes falling by 156,410 since its peak in 2017.

Yet the number of landlords has fallen further. Hamptons International estimate that there were 222,570 fewer landlords in the private rental sector in 2019 than in 2017.

The number of landlords peaked at 2.88 million in 2017, but tax and regulatory changes have caused some landlords to sell up and leave the sector.

By 2019 there were 2.66 million landlords in Great Britain, 8% fewer than the 2017 peak. This means that the number of landlords has fallen to the lowest level in seven years when there were 2.58 million landlords in Great Britain.

However,the average landlord now owns more properties. The average landlord in Great Britain owned 1.93 buy-to-let properties last year, the highest level since 2009 when the average landlord owned 2.02 properties. Last year 30% of landlords owned more than one buy-to-let property, the highest proportion on record. This is up from 21% in 2016 when many of the tax and regulatory changes were announced and is double the proportion recorded a decade ago when 15% of landlords owned multiple buy-to-lets.

Landlords in the North East had the biggest portfolios. The average landlord based in the North East owned 2.05 properties last year, closely followed by landlords based in Yorkshire & Humber (2.03 properties per landlord) and London (2.01 properties per landlord). Investors in Wales and Scotland were least likely to have big buy-to-let portfolios, with the average landlord letting out 1.83 properties in each region(table 2).

Rental growth

Across Great Britain average rents for new lets rose to £998 pcm in January, up 3.6% on the same time last year. Rents continued to increase the most in the South West (6.0%), followed by the East (4.1%) and Greater London (4.1%). Rents rose in every region, but Wales recorded the weakest rental growth at 1.2%(table 3).

Commenting Aneisha Beveridge, Head of Research at Hamptons International, said: “The number of landlords in the private rented sector has fallen to the lowest level in seven years.

“While 222,570 landlords have left the sector since 2017 due to tax and regulatory changes, those who have stayed tend to have bigger portfolios. A further sign that the sector is professionalising.

“The average landlord in Great Britain owned 1.93 properties last year, the highest level since 2009. Rents rose in every region across Great Britain in January to stand 3.6% higher than at the same time last year. The number of new homes purchased by landlords remains low, which is feeding through to fewer homes available to rent. This is particularly true in the South, where rents are rising the most.”

Share This Article

Comments

Rod

17:17 PM, 19th February 2020, About 5 years ago

I'm not surprised L/Ls are leaving the trade. I've just about had enough - hammered from all sides and you get it wrong the fines can run into £1000s !!!

Report Comment Reply

michaelwgroves

22:32 PM, 22nd February 2020, About 5 years ago

How is it possible that there are only 156k fewer private rented properties when 222k landlords left the market. At the bare minimum it should also be 222k. But as the average landlord owns nearly 2 properties, it should be closer to 444k fewer properties.
Doesn’t add up to me 🤷🏻‍♂️

Report Comment Reply

Michael Barnes

1:35 AM, 23rd February 2020, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by michaelwgroves at 22/02/2020 - 22:32Some properties sold by LLs getting out are sold to other LLs.
Two LLs of 1 house each get out; 1 property i sols to another LL; other goes to an owner-occupier.
Number of LLs is down 2; number of properties to let is down 1.

Report Comment Reply

Big Blue

22:45 PM, 28th February 2020, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by michaelwgroves at 22/02/2020 - 22:32
I know the answer. I thought that was bonkers figures too, so contacted Hamptons. They told me it was because many of the amateur landlords selling are joint owners - husbands & wives usually, but often other family members too - so they’d recorded two or more landlords leaving the market where 1 house was sold. They said on average it was around 0.7 houses per landlord sold. Although it still slightly baffles me that that many are in joint names, I suppose it makes a lot more sense when explained like that.

Report Comment Reply

Leave Comments

In order to post comments you will need to Sign In or Sign Up for a FREE Membership

Continue with Facebook

Continue with Twitter

Username/Email Address

Password

Remember Me

Forgotten your password?

Don't have an account? Sign Up

“Account”	means an account required to access and/or use certain areas and features of Our Site;
“Cookie”	means a small text file placed on your computer or device by Our Site when you visit certain parts of Our Site and/or when you use certain features of Our Site. Details of the Cookies used by Our Site are set out in section 13, below;
“Cookie Law”	means the relevant parts of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003;
“personal data”	means any and all data that relates to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified from that data. In this case, it means personal data that you give to Us via Our Site. This definition shall, where applicable, incorporate the definitions provided in the EU Regulation 2016/679 – the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”); and
“We/Us/Our”	Means Property118 Ltd , a limited company registered in England under company number 10295964, whose registered address is 1st Floor, Woburn House, 84 St Benedicts Street, Norwich, NR2 4AB.

Name of Cookie	Purpose	Strictly Necessary
JSESSIONID	Used only to collect performance data, with any identifiable data obfuscated	No
__cfduid	This cookie is strictly necessary for Cloudflare's security features and cannot be turned off.	Yes

Name of Cookie	First / Third Party	Provider	Purpose
__utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmt, __utmz	First	Google	Helps to understand how their visitors engage with our website
_fbp	First	Facebook	Helps to understand how their visitors engage with our website