The boss of build-to-rent giant Grainger says having fewer small landlords will create a more professional PRS where renters find it easier to secure a home.

Chief executive Helen Gordon believes as landlords have quit, and most rental properties go back into the ‘for sale’ market, there is also a “burgeoning professional private rented sector”.  Speaking on the Radio 4 Today programme, she said: “What’s exciting about this is that it’s actually encouraging global capital into the UK - pension funds from Australia, Canada and Singapore are investing in long term rental property and for the same reasons that small landlords do, because it’s a long-term protector of wealth.”

Property consultancy Knight Frank reports that investors have pumped almost £40 billion into the UK’s build-to-rent market during the last ten years.

Figures

Meanwhile, new figures from Savills show that 254,000 previously let buy‑to‑let homes were listed for sale in the past 12 months to the end of March – the equivalent of 697 properties each day. It reports that the amount of buy-to-let stock for sale has increased by 28% on 2024 and sits 9% above levels seen in the year to March 2025, highlighting a sustained shift in landlord behaviour amid changing market conditions.

The trend is most pronounced in London, where former rental properties accounted for 30% of all new sales instructions, compared to 13% across the rest of Great Britain.

Loss

Gordon said the loss of small landlords would not make it harder for some people, such as those without guarantors or poor credit history, to find rental homes. “I think probably the reverse is true. If you own a lot more properties, you can actually take a risk that you know one or two of them might fail in that tenancy. I think the key to housing supply is really making sure that we’ve got people really wanting to invest in UK housing and it’s so important for so many other industries that we have a stable housing market.”

She added that only about 175,000 homes out of the 5.2 million in the PRS were owned by professional landlords. “We hope that that sector will grow and I think it would be good for the UK.”

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