MKM Housing

  For the b est part of a decade, the story told about buy-to-let has been a funeral. Tax relief cuts. Stamp duty surcharges. Licensing. The Renters' Rights Act. Every year, another think-piece declares the private landlord extinct. Then the actual data arrives. According to UK Finance, landlords took out 58,272 new buy-to-let loans worth £10.8 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone — higher than the same period a year earlier, despite borrowing costs remaining above their historic lows. Even more telling: some of the country's wealthiest investors have been publicly moving into the private rental sector this year, not out of it. Somebody forgot to tell the money that buy-to-let is dead. Here's what's actually driving the comeback — and where it's heading. The maths started working again Three things shifted at once. Purchase prices softened — this June saw the largest monthly asking-price drop for fourteen years, giving buyers real negotiating room. ...

  For years, the Renters' Rights Act was something landlords talked about in the future tense. Something coming. Something to worry about later. Later has arrived. The Act now frames every letting in England, and 2026 is the year its requirements stopped being theoretical. If you're still letting property the way you did in 2023, parts of what you're doing are now non-compliant — and the penalties for getting it wrong have real teeth. Here's what's actually changed, in plain English, and what to do about it. Section 21 is gone — and that changes how you think about tenants The headline change is the abolition of Section 21 "no-fault" evictions. You can no longer end a tenancy simply because you want the property back with no reason given. Possession now runs through strengthened Section 8 grounds — rent arrears, antisocial behaviour, selling the property, moving in yourself — each with its own notice periods and evidence requirements. What this m...