Rightmove has this morning revealed that 16 per cent of properties currently for sale were previously available on the rental market, a figure which is up from 13 per cent before the pandemic.

The portal, in its latest rental market snapshot, says a sentiment survey it has conducted shows that landlords are currently facing challenges from multiple directions. 

Government sentiment towards the industry, rising taxation and increasing compliance requirements topped the list of landlords’ concerns in a recent study by Rightmove. A quarter are also concerned about the rising cost of buy-to-let mortgages.

The data suggests landlords are particularly concerned about their properties with a lower EPC rating, ahead of proposed changes to EPC requirements from the government.

Precisely 33 per cent of landlords who own lower EPC rated properties plan to sell them rather than make improvements to their EPC rating, compared with 20 per cent who planned to sell last year.

However, despite these challenges, landlords value having a good tenant in their home and are determined to keep good tenants for longer.

The majority (57 per cent) of landlords say that on average, tenants choose to stay in their properties for longer than 24 months, with only eight per cent saying they stay for a year or less.

Meanwhile the portal says that average asking rents for new tenants outside of London reach another new record this quarter of £1,231 per calendar month.

Despite quickly rising prices, rental homes are continuing to let at speed and many landlords are still being met with long queues of prospective tenants wanting to view and rent their property.

The current average time to find a tenant for a home to rent is 17 days, its quickest since November 2022.

Tenant demand continues to exceed even last year’s frenetic levels and is currently three per cent higher than at this time in 2022 and 42 per cent higher than June 2019.

The gap between supply and demand has slightly narrowed compared to last year, with available properties to rent up by seven per cent compared with June 2022, though this figure remains 42 per cent below 2019.