Editor's note: This brief was summarised by The Property AI Team from a report by Property118. Read the original article for full details.
More Than Half of Single-Property Landlords Plan to Exit Sector
More than half of landlords who own just one rental property plan to leave the sector completely within three years, according to Property118's Q3 2026 Landlord Sentiment Survey. In the survey, 53.4% of single-property landlords said exiting was their most likely course, against 16.7% of landlords with four or more properties.
The survey ran from 1 to 8 October 2026. A total of 1,654 landlords took part and 1,472 completed every page.
Asked what is most likely for them over the next three years, 53.1% of landlords with one property or none left plan to exit completely. The share falls steeply with each additional property: 30.8% of those with two or three, and 17.6% of those with four or five. From four properties upwards it levels off at between 14.4% and 17.6%.
The pattern is not a one-quarter result. In Q2, when the same question was asked, 55.9% of single-property landlords planned to exit, against 19.5% of those with four or more. The small change since then is within normal survey variation.
Nor is it simply about age. Single-property landlords are older than average, but among landlords aged 55 or over the gap is just as wide: 54.2% of single-property landlords plan to exit, against 16.4% of those with four or more. Allowing for age, mortgages and ownership structure together, single-property landlords are still around four to five times as likely to plan a full exit.
For a one-property landlord, selling means leaving. The survey offers two selling answers: sell one or more properties, or exit completely. For a landlord with one property, these are the same thing. Counting both answers together, 57.3% of single-property landlords plan to sell, against 66.4% of landlords with four or more. Single-property landlords are also more likely to plan to keep things as they are: 39.9% expect to stay the same, against 25.2% of larger landlords. They have also sold less recently: 22.0% of single-property landlords sold a rental property in the last 12 months, against 35.6% of those with four or more.
Single-property landlords are not more likely than larger landlords to be reducing their portfolios. What is different is that when they sell, the property, the landlord and the tenancy all leave the sector together. A larger landlord can trim a portfolio and stay; a single-property landlord cannot.
The survey also asked landlords the largest number of rental properties they have ever owned at one time. Almost half (45.7%) of single-property landlords once owned more. Most of them had two or three properties at their peak, although one in six of all single-property landlords once held four or more. This group is most of the way out already: two thirds (66.7%) plan to exit completely, and 43.6% sold a rental property.
Source: Property118