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Intermediary Director Adrian Moloney Talks About This Shift

Over the past few years, there has been a rapid and significant rise in the number of landlords investing in property through a limited company. Nearly half (49%) of landlords responding to a December 2022 poll on GetGround said they had first invested in property via a limited company within the previous 12 months, while 42% had done this for the first time in the past 1-3 years. It found that approximately three out of four landlords operating in the UK have used a limited company when investing in at least one of their properties.

These figures are supported by the most recent Hamptons data from October 2022, which revealed that the total number of companies set up to hold BTL property passed 300,000 for the first time—meaning that the total number of BTL companies has doubled since 2017.

This rising number of property investors incorporating their portfolios in this way could be described as a shift towards

‘professionalisation’. However, according to Adrian, owning BTL property in a limited company is not the only factor that defines a professional landlord. In his view, this is someone who considers it as their fulltime job and is running their investment properties as a fully-fledged business.

Another element is a continuous desire to grow portfolios whenever there is an opportunity—a trend reflected in OSB Group’s inaugural Landlord Leaders report, published in November 2022, which showed that 80% of full-time landlords planned to increase their portfolio size compared to 40% of part-time landlords.

Based on this definition, the BTL sector is indeed witnessing a trend towards professionalism—an opinion shared by many brokers and landlords themselves. The Landlord Leaders research found that 73% of brokers and 64% of landlords believe the sector is becoming more professional.