The Mortgage Works published its quarterly landlord research this week, covering fieldwork carried out between 21 June and 10 July 2026 among 567 NRLA members across the UK, 152 of them with property in the South East. It’s a useful snapshot because it comes straight from landlords, not estimates, and it breaks the South East out separately from the national number. Here’s what it actually says, and what stands out for portfolios around Winchester, Southampton, Portsmouth and the New Forest.

Confidence is falling faster than the numbers justify

The share of landlords rating the outlook for rental yields as good or very good dropped from 37% to 33% year on year. Confidence in their own lettings business fell from 35% to 32%, and confidence in capital gains dropped from 18% to 16%.

Look at what’s actually happening to yields over the same period and the mood doesn’t match the numbers. Average rental yield sits at 6.4% for Q2 2026, only 0.2 percentage points below the ten year high recorded in Q3 2025. Landlords are more pessimistic than the yield data supports. That gap between sentiment and performance is the real story in this release.

More landlords are planning to sell than to buy, by a wide margin

43% of landlords intend to sell a property in the next 12 months. Only 6% intend to buy. That’s more than seven times as many sellers as buyers in the pipeline. Among the smaller group who are planning to buy, 48% expect to use buy-to-let finance for the purchase and 64% plan to buy through a limited company rather than personally.

Rent increases are still common, just less common than they were

63% of landlords put rents up in the last 12 months. That’s down from 69% a year ago and down from 74% two years ago. Only 2% cut rents, and 32% held them flat. So rents are still moving upward for most landlords, the pace has just slowed for three years running.

Remortgaging is shifting toward limited companies

40% of leveraged landlords expect to remortgage or arrange a product transfer in the next 12 months, and 23% of those plan to do it through a limited company structure. If a remortgage or a limited company purchase is something you’re weighing up, that’s a mortgage broking question rather than a property management one. Harry also runs HTG Mortgages, and can talk through the options.

What South East landlords are actually seeing

This is the section most relevant to portfolios in our area. The South East regional figures, based on 152 NRLA members, look different from the national picture in a few ways.

The average South East portfolio is 8.8 properties, noticeably bigger than the UK average of 7.2. 59% of South East landlords have at least one buy-to-let mortgage, holding 4.7 loans on average, with £662,000 owed through buy-to-let borrowing. Average estimated portfolio value comes in at £2.5 million, and gross rental income per property is £11,398 a year.

Average rental yield in the South East is 6.1%, below the UK average of 6.4% and well below the East of England and East Midlands, which top the regional table at 7.3% each. That’s the trade-off of the South East: higher property values buy lower yields on paper, even though the actual rental income per property is above the national figure.

On activity, 7% of South East landlords bought a property in the last 12 months and 24% sold one. 24% had a rental arrear, slightly below the UK average of 26%, and 45% had a void period, above the UK average of 41%. Landlord confidence in the South East mirrors the national mood: 33% rate rental yield prospects as good, 33% say the same for their own lettings business, and only 5% rate the UK economy as good.

The profitability picture is stronger than the mood suggests

Despite the falling confidence, 87% of South East landlords report making a profit, against 9% breaking even and 4% making a loss. That’s in line with the national figure of 86% profitable. Landlords who don’t use buy-to-let borrowing are more likely to be profitable than those who do, 92% against 81% nationally, which tracks with a smaller number of leveraged landlords carrying financing costs that unleveraged landlords don’t.

The gap between how landlords feel about the next three months and how their portfolios are actually performing right now is worth sitting with. Rents are still rising for most people, yields are close to a ten year high, and the large majority of landlords are profitable. The pessimism seems to be about what’s coming, remortgaging at higher rates, more regulation, a weaker sales market, rather than about current performance.

What this means if you’re managing a portfolio here

Void periods and rent arrears are the two figures in this data that a landlord has some control over, unlike yield or sentiment. 45% of South East landlords had a void period in the last 12 months and 24% had an arrear. Both come down to two things: how carefully a tenant is referenced before they move in, and how quickly a void gets re-let. That’s the part of the job that’s easiest to get wrong managing a property alone, and it’s exactly what we cover in guaranteed rent vs fully managed.

This isn’t financial or legal advice, just a read of what The Mortgage Works published this quarter. If you want to talk through what any of it means for a specific property, get in touch or see what fully managed actually includes.

Source: The Mortgage Works, Landlord Trends Research Q2 2026, fieldwork 21 June to 10 July 2026, published via Pegasus Insight. National figures based on 567 NRLA members with property in the UK. South East figures based on 152 NRLA members with property in the South East. Landlords may operate in more than one region, so regional totals don’t sum to the national one.