The number of homes being marketed for sale with tenants already in place has fallen by 43.9% in two years, according to Propoly, suggesting landlords are growing more cautious about taking on inherited tenancies after the Renters’ Rights Act.
The research puts the current total at 6,973 listings across Britain, down from 12,423 two years ago. The South East recorded the sharpest drop at 60%, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber, the East of England, the East Midlands and the West Midlands.
Tenant-in-situ sales weaken as flexibility drops
The numbers point to a shift in buyer behaviour rather than a simple collapse in landlord appetite. Buying with a tenant in place once offered investors a quick route to income from day one. That calculation looks less straightforward when possession routes are tighter and landlords have less room to reset terms after purchase.
The North West still accounts for the biggest share of tenant-in-situ listings, with 1,909 homes currently on the market. Even so, the direction of travel is clear. Landlords appear more willing to buy empty stock, or at least properties where they can fully control referencing and tenancy set-up from the start.
Sim Sekhon, group chief executive of Propoly, said the bigger shift was in landlord appetite for taking on existing tenants, as the new legal framework leaves investors with greater long-term exposure and less flexibility once a tenancy is in place.
This follows Residential Landlord’s earlier look at landlords selling with tenants still in occupation and its more recent coverage of sector consolidation pressure under the Renters’ Rights Act. Taken together, the picture is less about a mass exit and more about landlords becoming pickier over risk.
Why inherited tenancies now look harder to price
For investors, the issue is not just rent coming in on day one. It is whether the existing tenant profile, rent level, paperwork and property condition still make sense under the new regime. If any of those look weak, the discount needed to justify the purchase may now be bigger than the seller is willing to accept.
- Existing rent may sit below the current market level
- Historic paperwork gaps may create possession risk later
- Buyers may prefer to run their own referencing from the start
That creates a practical warning for landlords planning disposals. Selling with a tenant in place may still work, especially in high-yield markets, but the buyer pool looks narrower than it did before May. In some regions that could mean longer marketing periods or sharper price negotiations.
The figures were reported by Property Industry Eye from Propoly’s listings analysis.
Opinion
Landlords are often accused of acting emotionally around reform, but this looks more like cold risk pricing. If inherited tenancies are becoming harder to value, the market will simply pay less for them or avoid them altogether. Ministers say the new system brings stability. For many buyers, it seems to bring less control.
