Landlords are spending billions less on property purchases than they were three years ago and are abandoning London in droves, leaving tenants facing a possible shortage of homes and rising rents.
British buy-to-let investors spent £12.1bn on property purchases in the first half of this year, £5.2bn less than in the first half of 2015, according to analysis of HM Revenue & Customs statistics by Hamptons International, the estate agency.
The number of properties bought by landlords fell similarly sharply, by 31% from 92,994 in the first half of 2015 to 64,255 in the equivalent period of this year,
