Who wants to be a landlord? Look at the speed of rent rises across the UK and you’d think everyone would be mad for it. A report just out from Hamptons shows rents on newly let UK properties rising at one of the fastest rates on record — up 12% year-on-year in August and up 30% since the beginning of the pandemic. That’s ahead of the rate of inflation and six times the average annual rise in the three years before 2020. Hay meet sunshine.

But here’s the odd thing: Everyone isn’t mad for it at all. Far from it. Instead, says the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), a record number of buy-to-let investors are planning to sell. In the second quarter, new buy-to-let mortgages made up only 8.1% of the total market — 40% less than the same quarter last year, according to the Financial Conduct Authority.