"The rest of 2026 will not deliver one headline event. It will be akin to death by a thousand cuts, or success by a thousand small improvements, depending on how we run things."
- Jonathan Rolande - House Buy Fast
A hundred days into 2026, and the rental market is no longer coasting. The numbers still look 'fine', but the feel has changed.
Zoopla puts the average rent for new lets at £1,319 in March, with annual growth down to 1.9%. The ONS is higher, with average UK private rents up 3.5% to February. Either way, the message is the same - rental growth is cooling, and we cannot rely on it to paper over weak management, tired stock, or sloppy compliance.
Rents are still rising in plenty of areas, but the easy wins have gone. Affordability is tighter, and tenants are choosier. Not because they have suddenly become difficult, but because they can pick more carefully.
If you are pushing the rent, the property has to earn it. Condition, responsiveness, and overall 'hassle factor' now show up in voids, renegotiations, and churn. The market is still undersupplied, but that does not mean every rent increase is automatically defensible.
What’s more, stricter regulations are coming down the line fast. The first phase of the Renter’s Rights Act comes into force on 1 May 2026, pulling existing and new private tenancies in England into the new system.
This is where the gap opens up between landlords who run property like a business and those who run it like a side project. The winners will not be the most optimistic; they will be the most organised. We’ll see an acceleration in the disappearance of the ‘mum and dad’ landlord. It’s all about to get much more corporate.
Finance is more of an issue right now
Rates are volatile and still high enough to deter all but the most committed. I am seeing more landlords stress test deals and get brutally honest about what is actually performing. Errors, even small ones, get punished in a market with limited growth.
If an asset only worked in the cheap debt/high rent/rising prices era, it is going to feel increasingly heavy in 2026.
So what comes next?
The rest of 2026 will not deliver one headline event. It will be akin to death by a thousand cuts, or success by a thousand small improvements, depending on how we run things.
Rental growth is likely to continue, but at a slow pace. And the landlords who stay ahead will be the ones who tighten systems early, keep stock competitive, and treat compliance as core, not admin. For landlords still going it alone, AI assistance is the cavalry arriving.
The real lesson from the first 100 days? Demand is still there, but the margin for error is not.
