More than 500 rental homes a day are reportedly leaving the UK private rented sector, according to analysis from TwentyEA reported by Property Industry Eye.
That is not just a landlord story. It is a housing supply problem.
TwentyEA estimates that around 181,000 properties left the PRS in 2025 and that approximately 834,800 rental properties have left since the beginning of the decade.
The industry needs to stop treating landlord exits as an inevitable side effect of a changing market.
At DSS Select, our position is clear: retaining responsible landlords must become part of housing policy.
We need new homes. But we also need to stop losing the rental homes we already have.
The question is simple:
What would persuade a good landlord who is thinking about selling to keep their property in the rental sector?
Answer that properly and we could retain thousands of homes.
Regulation Will Not Create Rental Supply
The private rented sector is going through substantial change.
In England, the first phase of the Renters’ Rights Act reforms came into force on 1 May 2026, including the abolition of Section 21 and the move to assured periodic tenancies.
Further changes are approaching, including the PRS Database, which the Government intends to begin rolling out from late 2026.
Standards matter. Tenant protection matters.
Supply matters too.
Every time a viable rental property leaves the sector, another household has to compete for the remaining stock.
So the policy conversation cannot be limited to what more landlords should be required to do. It also needs to address what would make responsible landlords choose to stay.
That means tackling risk, cost and administration.
1. Give Landlords Certainty
For many landlords, the highest possible rent is not the only consideration.
Certainty has value.
A landlord receiving a reliable monthly payment, experiencing fewer void periods and having professional support may prefer that arrangement to chasing the absolute maximum open-market rent while carrying considerably more risk.
Councils, housing organisations and approved private-sector partners should therefore expand schemes offering guaranteed or underwritten rent, where commercially viable and subject to clear terms.
The proposition should be straightforward:
Reliable rent. Reduced voids. Professional support. Suitable tenants.
Make the numbers work and landlords will listen.
2. Stop Treating Compliance as the Landlord’s Problem Alone
Compliance has become increasingly complex, particularly for smaller landlords.
A professional property company can build systems around regulatory change. A landlord with one property cannot always do that.
That does not excuse non-compliance. It tells us where support is needed.
Instead of producing another checklist and expecting landlords to navigate it alone, approved schemes should provide a practical compliance service covering areas such as:
· Gas Safety Certificates
· EICRs
· EPC requirements
· Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
· Property licensing
· PRS Database requirements
· Tenancy documentation
· Deposit requirements
· Property inspections
· Rent reviews
· Regulatory updates
A responsible landlord should be able to hand the compliance process to a competent professional and know it is being monitored.
Make compliance easier to achieve and harder to miss.
That is better for landlords and tenants.
3. Link Improvement Funding to Rental Supply
If a property needs substantial work to remain viable as a rental home, there is a strong case for targeted support.
Government and local authorities should consider grants, matched funding and low or interest-free loans for qualifying improvements.
But public support should deliver a public return.
If funding is provided, the landlord could commit to keeping the property available for rent for a defined period—perhaps three to five years.
That creates a straightforward exchange.
The landlord receives help improving the property.
The tenant gets a better-quality home.
The rental sector retains the property.
Public money should be used to unlock housing supply, not simply subsidise an asset with no corresponding commitment.
4. Reward Landlords Who Stay
If policymakers want long-term private rental supply, they should incentivise long-term participation.
That could mean reduced licensing charges, discounted registration costs, access to improvement funding or other targeted benefits for landlords who commit suitable properties to recognised schemes.
There is nothing radical about this.
Governments routinely use incentives to encourage behaviour that produces a wider economic or social benefit.
Housing should be no different.
If we want responsible landlords to provide homes, staying in the market must make commercial sense.
5. Reduce the Risk of Renting to Supported Households
This is where DSS Select believes there is significant untapped potential.
There are landlords with properties.
There are tenants who need those properties.
Yet the two often never meet because the tenant does not fit conventional referencing criteria.
Someone receiving Universal Credit, moving out of temporary accommodation or progressing from supported housing may be perfectly capable of sustaining a tenancy but still struggle to secure a privately rented home.
Telling landlords simply to accept more risk will not solve that problem.
Reduce the risk instead.
A stronger package could include:
· Deposit guarantees
· Rent-in-advance assistance
· Rent guarantees
· Early arrears intervention
· A named tenancy-support contact
· Direct landlord liaison
· Practical support when problems emerge
The public and private sectors should be working together to make these tenancies more secure, not expecting either the landlord or tenant to carry the entire risk.
6. Give the Landlord One Number to Call
There is a point often missed when discussing landlord exits.
Some landlords do not want to sell the property.
They want to get rid of the problems that come with managing it.
Those are not the same thing.
A landlord-support service should provide one accountable point of contact for compliance, inspections, maintenance, tenant communication, rent issues and regulatory change.
When something goes wrong, the landlord should know exactly who is dealing with it.
This matters particularly for landlords with one or two properties. They do not have compliance departments, maintenance teams or in-house property managers.
Take away enough of the administration and uncertainty and selling may no longer look like the only sensible option.
7. Stop Leaving Usable Homes Empty
Landlord retention is only part of the opportunity.
There are also privately owned homes sitting empty because owners consider letting too complicated or too risky.
We should be actively targeting those properties.
DSS Select believes councils, housing organisations, agents and private-sector partners should develop Empty Property to Rental Schemes with a clear route from vacant property to occupied home:
Assessment → improvements → compliance → tenant placement → rent support → ongoing management.
That is a far more useful conversation than simply asking why a property is empty.
If a suitable home can be brought back into use, identify what is preventing the owner from letting it and remove that obstacle where reasonably possible.
8. Intervene Before the Landlord Sells
The best time to retain a rental property is before the sales board goes up.
Letting and estate agents are often the first to hear that a landlord is considering selling.
That moment should trigger a retention conversation.
Show the landlord the alternatives:
· Current achievable rent
· Expected net return
· Guaranteed-rent options
· Likely compliance expenditure
· Available improvement support
· Management options
· Demand from suitable tenants
· Longer-term options for the property
Then let the owner make an informed commercial decision.
Some will sell. That is their choice.
But a landlord should not leave the PRS simply because nobody showed them a workable alternative.
The Missing Link Is Already in Front of Us
Britain does not need to invent an entirely new housing infrastructure to make this work.
Much of it already exists.
Local authorities have households requiring homes.
Charities and support organisations have people ready for independent living.
Landlords have properties.
Agents have local relationships, property expertise and infrastructure.
What is missing is an effective mechanism connecting them.
That is where DSS Select believes the property sector can play a much bigger role.
We should be building a genuine public-private rental partnership that gives landlords commercial confidence while maintaining proper standards and support for tenants.
Build an Offer Landlords Actually Want
A credible landlord-retention package should combine:
Guaranteed or underwritten rent
Deposit guarantees
Reduced void periods
Compliance support
Improvement funding
Professional tenant assessment
Dedicated tenancy support
Early intervention when problems arise
Less administration
One accountable point of contact
No single measure will reverse the decline in rental stock.
Together, they could materially change the decision facing a landlord who is considering selling.
And that is the point.
We do not need every landlord to stay. We need to give the landlords who could stay a compelling reason to do so.
The DSS Select View: Landlord Retention Must Become Housing Policy
For too long, the debate has been framed as though protecting tenants and supporting landlords are competing objectives.
They are not.
A sustainable rental sector needs good landlords and secure tenants.
Building new homes remains essential, but it takes time. Losing an existing rental property can happen in weeks.
That makes retention one of the quickest housing interventions available.
If the figures showing hundreds of rental properties leaving the sector every day are even broadly indicative of the scale of the challenge, preventing a fraction of those exits could preserve thousands of homes each year.
That deserves serious attention from government, councils and the property industry.
At DSS Select, we believe landlord retention should sit alongside housebuilding, homelessness prevention and temporary accommodation reduction as a genuine housing-supply strategy.
We should identify landlords considering leaving the sector before they sell.
We should identify empty homes that could be rented before they remain vacant for years.
We should support tenants who are capable of sustaining private tenancies before they become trapped in temporary accommodation.
And we should give responsible landlords a proposition strong enough to make them want to participate.
The pieces already exist.
The properties exist.
The landlords exist.
The tenants exist.
The agents, councils and support organisations exist.
What is missing is the connection between them.
That is the gap DSS Select believes the industry should now close.
The next phase of rental reform cannot only be about regulating the homes that remain in the PRS.
It must also be about keeping those homes there.
