The landlord exodus letting agents have watched with growing anxiety is real, and its effects on managed stock are already being felt across England. Around 700 buy-to-let properties are hitting the sales market every day. Some 93,000 landlords exited the private rented sector in 2025, according to property purchasing firm LandlordBuyer, with a further 110,000 forecast to leave in 2026. Nearly one in six homes currently listed for sale was previously a rental property — up from one in ten a year ago…

The numbers are significant. But a closer look at the most recent data suggests the market may be approaching a turning point — and the PRS that emerges from this shakeout will look very different from the one that entered it.

What the Landlord Exodus Letting Agents Are Living Through Actually Looks Like

Research from proptech platform iamproperty, drawing on more than 320 agency interviews, found that agents anticipate a 71% reduction in buy-to-let investors this year. Many describe what is happening as a double-edged sword: rents on remaining stock are rising, but the shrinking supply base is making portfolio growth increasingly difficult. One contributor quoted in the report was blunt: “It’s two steps forward, one step back. Rents rise, but stock just isn’t there.”

Only 26% of agents told iamproperty they feel optimistic about the current regulatory environment. The majority are reviewing staffing, diversifying income streams, and shifting their focus toward owner-occupier sales transactions to compensate for lettings volume they are unlikely to recover quickly.

“Letting agents are navigating a significant shift in the market, and it’s forcing agencies to rethink how they grow and operate.”
— Ben Ridgway, Co-Founder, iamproperty

The Slowdown in the Data That Changes the Picture

Here is what most agents have not yet clocked. Property data consultancy TwentyCi found that the proportion of new sales instructions that were former rental properties fell from 22.5% in Q1 2025 to 12.4% in Q1 2026. In London — historically the most affected market — the year-on-year reduction in landlords intending to exit is running at 51%. Outside the capital the figure is 41%.

Goodlord’s survey of more than 1,200 landlords, published in April, found that 72% are not currently offloading any stock — a meaningfully better figure than the same survey recorded last September. Emily Popple, Director of Landlord Experience at Goodlord, said the numbers suggest “the pace of the so-called landlord exodus has started to ease, with the majority of landlords appearing to be in a holding pattern.”

The more sober reading is that landlords who were going to leave ahead of the Renters’ Rights Act have, by and large, already left. What remains is a more committed — if more cautious — base of property owners waiting to see how the new regime plays out in practice now that it is live.

The PRS Is Not Shrinking — It Is Changing Hands

Of properties sold out of the rental market in the second and third quarters of 2025, only 6% outside London were subsequently re-let after the sale completed, rising to just 11% in the capital, according to TwentyCi. The rest were absorbed by owner-occupiers and are, for practical purposes, gone.

The exits are real, but so is the institutional money moving in to replace them. Build to Rent investment is forecast to exceed £5.7 billion in 2026, up from £5.3 billion last year, with completions rising 13% in 2025. Limited company buy-to-let purchases hit record levels last year, accounting for 43% of all BTL mortgage applications, as professional investors restructured for tax efficiency and long-term operation.

Savills acknowledged in its rental forecasts that Build to Rent is “still too small in scale to have a real impact on supply” in the near term. The gap between departing small landlords and arriving institutional operators is real, and tenants will feel it through continued upward pressure on rents. But the direction of travel is clear: the sector is professionalising, whether the remaining independent agents are ready for it or not.

What This Means for Letting Agents Right Now

Estate agency group Dwelly has predicted that, by the end of 2026, around 30% of DIY landlords — those currently managing without an agent — will move to professional management, finding the new compliance burden too complex to handle alone. That represents a potential wave of new instructions for agents who can demonstrate they are genuinely across the new rules.

The landlords who remain in the market after this shakeout are running their portfolios as businesses. They expect clear communication, reliable compliance support, and agents who understand the regulatory landscape without needing to be briefed on it. The old landlord-agent relationship — informal, low-maintenance, built on trust and habit — is giving way to something more demanding on both sides.

For letting agents, the landlord exodus has been painful. The data now suggests it may also be largely behind them. The question is whether they are positioned to serve the leaner, more professional PRS that is taking shape — or still set up for a client base that has already left.

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