New money, new movers: how rising rents, easing rates and landlord churn are quietly reshaping buy‑to‑let
Reports of a shrinking buy‑to‑let sector masked a more nuanced picture, with new landlords still coming in and ex‑rental stock opening doors for first-time buyers, according to broker Rikesh Tailor.
Tailor said he agreed that the landlord landscape was changing, with some long‑standing investors leaving the market. “I think what you were probably seeing was maybe – and not all the time – a landlord who had been a landlord for 30 years, 20 years, coming out of the market, so making way for new landlords,” he explained.
That did not mean an absence of new entrants. “I was still seeing clients coming into the market – first‑time landlords,” he said. “That was not a problem.” Whether they bought in personal names or through limited companies depended largely on the advice they received from accountants, he added.
Tailor acknowledged that 2023’s higher rate environment had made life harder for investors. “Last year, when the rates were higher, it was harder to justify it,” he said. But he believed the economics had begun to shift. “As the rates were starting to come down, rents had gone up. The margin was there again.”
“At the time when the customer came to you, it was about their affordability at the time and the best rate they could get,” he said. “We, as an industry, knew last year the rates were higher, they were lower this year – we had that bit of knowledge – but people that were genuinely looking to buy were not really looking at that.”
For brokers, that means reframing conversations away from rate nostalgia and towards structure and risk. Tailor highlighted the trade‑offs between two‑ and five‑year fixes, and the attractions and dangers of trackers. Some clients wanted five‑year certainty; others preferred the flexibility of a shorter term, while tracker customers needed to understand that rates could rise as well as fall. “You had to explain that it could go from 4% to 6%,” he said. “Were they happy with that?”
Crucially, Tailor said landlord exits were not purely negative for the market. He observed that properties being sold by buy‑to‑let investors were increasingly being snapped up by first‑time buyers. “Where the buy‑to‑let landlords were exiting, for whatever reason they were exiting, those properties were now becoming available for first-time buyers,” he said. “That did drive the market up as well, because that first‑time buyer came in and allowed the other person to move on to their second home… second to the third.”
He cautioned that there was always a delay between changes in rates or prices and the point at which households actually felt the impact, particularly for those on fixed‑rate deals. But overall, he remained upbeat about the sector’s direction of travel. “I was very optimistic about everything,” he said. “Where people had sold off, there were people buying.”
For brokers, Tailor’s view is that buy‑to‑let remained viable – if more professional and advice‑driven – and that churn in the landlord base could simultaneously support yields and unlock much‑needed stock for aspiring homeowners.
