Ninety-three thousand buy-to-let (BTL) landlords will step away from the rental market this year, Black & White Bridging research has revealed.

The bridging firm’s latest Broker Insights report found that intermediaries have forecast a 6% drop in the number of UK BTL landlords by the end of 2025.

According to HMRC, there were 2.84 million unincorporated landlords in the UK in 2023, and Black & White has estimated that 57% of these had a BTL mortgage, based on data from the English private landlord survey 2021.

The lender stated that this number of BTL landlords has already fallen by 65,000, suggesting a 4% drop in BTL landlords between 2023 and 2024.

Of the brokers surveyed by Black & White, 23% anticipated that the number of BTL landlords would grow this year, while 56% were forecasting a drop in numbers.

Chief operating officer at Black & White Bridging, Damien Druce, said the survey not only indicates a loss of more than 150,000 BTL landlords from the rental market in a two-year period, but also demonstrates that the rate of change is accelerating year-on-year.

He concluded: "It’s likely these are landlords with small portfolios of one or two properties, landlords who don’t want to face the ongoing changes to regulation and rising costs. Being frank, brokers who write a lot of vanilla BTL business may be nervous to find that there will be fewer BTL landlords overall going into 2026.

"But we think the industry will be left with a more professional cohort that is more likely to embrace opportunities or property deals that require specialist finance. Professional landlords are more likely to be interested in bespoke auction products or a residential bridge to make quick property acquisitions and provide them with the time they need to organise tenants – even refurbishment bridge products can be used to fix up a bargain ahead of securing a BTL mortgage. There will still be opportunities for brokers."

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