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Landlords drive continued rise in buy-to-let borrowing

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A substantial increase in the number of BTL mortgages and remortgages suggests the rate of rental investment activity is the most positive it’s been since 2022, according to Rightmove.

It cites new UK Finance figures which show the number of new buy-to-let mortgages taken out to buy rental homes in the year to October was 13% up on the previous year, while the number of remortgages increased by 23%. New mortgages went up from 16,226 in Q3 2024 to 16,885 in the same quarter last year, while for remortgaging, it increased from 30,750 to 40,697.

Rightmove reckons it’s a positive sign that there is both new investment, and landlords choosing to keep existing rental homes. Its new daily buy-to-let mortgage tracker highlights the improving affordability for landlords looking to invest in rental property; the average two-year BTL mortgage rate for a landlord with a 25% deposit is now 4.84%, compared with 5.51% last year.

Yield

Annual landlord yield is also showing slight improvement, says Rightmove, which reports that this is static only in the East and West Midlands, while it has gone up by 0.1% in every other region except for Yorkshire & The Humber and the South West, where it rose by 0.2%.

There is still a long-term shortage of available rental homes - 9% higher than last year, but still a third (-33%) lower than ten years ago - which Rightmove expects to keep rents ticking upwards in 2026.

RICS

The latest RICS UK Residential Market Survey for December reports that tenant demand at letting agents slipped further into negative territory, with the net balance falling to -27% - the weakest since the early stages of the pandemic while the net balance for new landlord instructions remains deeply negative at -39%.

Rightmove’s Rental Trends Tracker shows the average advertised rent of homes outside of London fell in Q4 2025 by 1.1% (-£15), dropping to £1,370 per month - only the second time in five years that quarterly rents have fallen.

Across 2025, average advertised rents rose by 2.2% compared to 2024 and Rightmove predicts that they will rise by a further 2% across the year.

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