So - the year is drawing to a close. Did you hit your goals in 2024? Or do you find yourself increasingly paralysed by the next crazy lurch in the mortgage market, governmentally, geopolitically, or the likes? A word of advice on that point. I’m very plugged in to all of that and am an active and keen commentator. I also appreciate my complete lack of power and influence on the gilts market and the resulting interest rates.

However - when something moves against me (and us), then I usually make sure to relax, go to bed, and then remember to ask myself when I wake up in the morning: “Do people still need houses?”

The answer is that of course they do. The reality of today’s market - not as yet picked up by the data - is that landlords appear to be disposing of stock (in terms of single houses anyway) at double the rate at which they are acquiring it (source: Rightmove, Q3 2024 numbers: 20% of houses bought to market are ex-rentals i.e. were on Rightmove to rent within the past four years, whereas 10% of those SSTC are sold to investment buyers). There’s still a keen debate in the world that is still looking at data “up until March 2023” - a fair few bits have changed since then, of course, including the base rate of interest and mortgage rates as a rule.

This would be an underestimation, in my eyes, because there will be plenty of ex-rentals sold that were not on Rightmove to rent within the past four years. But there we go. The “proper” data for the year from April 2023 to March 2024 will be revealed in December 2025, by which point the situation is likely to be even worse. “Peak disposal” has likely not yet been reached, although it is difficult to tell - but it isn’t a one-off spike, more of a regular flow.

Then - in 2025 - we have the Renters’ Rights Bill of course. Unstoppable under our current parliamentary setup. All “bad news” for the landlord - some vastly overegged, some genuinely to be worried about. This is no doubt driving some of the disposals. How do we break down RRB sales versus interest rate inspired sales? With difficulty. There will be more of a spike, however, as the bill nears completion - lots of landlords have still not heard of it, of course, and it is only when it does become LAW that they will start to take action.