Bradford and Bingley’s (B&B) recently released Buy-to-Let Confidence Study has found that despite the current economic conditions the overwhelming majority of landlords remain confident in the buy-to-let market.

The study, which is the largest of its kind with approximately 7,800 responses, found that 90% of investors remain confident in their investments, an increase of 4% on Q4 2007. Over the next 6 months 49% of investors said they planned on their portfolios remaining the same and 41% said they had plans to increase their portfolio. Of all the investors questioned only 1% planned to leave the market completely.

When asked about rents, only 3% found that their rents had decreased, 38% found that they were now increasing their rents from 12 months ago. Investors showed continuing confidence in the market with 99% believing that rents would remain stable or increase over the next six months.

The study concludes by saying: ‘At a time when the vagaries of the housing market are under even closer scrutiny than usual, buy-to-let landlords have yet again proved themselves resilient to market conditions and dire predictions about the future of property investment.’