Overseas landlords are beating a retreat from Britain’s property market in the face of lower expectations of house price growth, a tougher tax regime and the impact of the Brexit-related fall in sterling on their rental returns.
The share of new lettings accounted for by landlords based outside the UK has more than halved in eight years, falling from 14.4% in 2010 to 5.8% in the first 11 months of 2018 — the lowest proportion recorded by estate agent Hamptons International since it began gathering the data eight years ago.
The decline was particularly pronounced in London, the country’s biggest housing rental market, where one in four homes — 26% — were rented by an overseas landlord in 2010, but this has fallen to 10.5 per cent so far in 2018.
