12:01 AM, 31st July 2026, 3 minutes ago
Across two quarters, landlords have been asked what would tempt them to buy again. The answer has not budged. Ahead of falling interest rates, ahead of scrapping the Renters’ Rights Act, ahead of lower Stamp Duty, one lever sits at the top: reverse Section 24.
When the Property118 Landlord Sentiment Survey asked landlords to rank the factors that would most influence a decision to buy more rental property, the result in Q2 was remarkably consistent with Q1.
A reversal of Section 24 remains the single biggest incentive that would draw landlords back into buying. Falling interest rates came next, followed by a repeal of the Renters’ Rights Act. Lower Stamp Duty ranked last of the four.
A quick reminder of what Section 24 did
Section 24, phased in from 2017, restricted the ability of individual landlords to deduct mortgage interest as a business expense, replacing full relief with a basic-rate tax credit. In practice, it means many higher-rate landlords are now taxed on turnover rather than profit, and some pay tax even when their real return is slim or negative.
It was, and remains, one of the most consequential changes ever made to landlord taxation. The fact that its reversal tops this list, quarter after quarter, is a pointed reminder that the treatment of mortgage interest, more than any other single lever, is what suppresses appetite to invest.
The incorporation shift it triggered
Section 24 did not just dampen buying. It quietly rewired how landlords structure their portfolios, and the survey captures that shift in sharp relief.
The limited company route now dominates future intentions. In Q2, 53.1% of landlords who would buy said they would do so through a company SPV, up slightly on Q1, while purchases in a personal name continued their slow decline to around 29%. Interest in Family Investment Companies edged up too.
Yet this is a story of intention running ahead of reality. When it comes to existing holdings, personal ownership still dominates at around 62%. The gap between how landlords own today and how they would buy tomorrow is one of the most telling findings in the whole survey.
The trap in the middle
Why does that gap persist? Because closing it is expensive. Moving a personally-held property into a company is, in tax terms, a disposal, and it can trigger a significant Capital Gains Tax charge. So many landlords are locked into legacy personal ownership structures that Section 24 has made less tax-efficient, unable to move to the company model they would now choose without paying dearly for the privilege.
It is a neat illustration of how tax changes compound one another. Section 24 pushes landlords towards incorporation; Capital Gains Tax makes incorporating their existing portfolios prohibitively costly; and so the incentive to simply sell, rather than restructure, grows.
A message the Treasury keeps hearing
The survey does not tell the government what to do. But it does tell it, in consistent numbers across two quarters, what landlords are responding to. The single most effective step to revive investment appetite in the private rented sector would be to revisit Section 24.
Whether that message is acted upon is another matter. But it can no longer be said that the sector has not made its priorities clear. Quarter after quarter, landlords are pointing at the same lever. The only question is whether anyone will pull it.