Twice a year, the LonRes Agent Survey asks letting agents across London what they are seeing in their market. Over multiple waves it has tracked sentiment as one of the most significant pieces of legislation to affect the private rented sector — the Renters’ Rights Act (RRA) — moved from proposal to law.
This article draws on four consecutive surveys to examine how that sentiment has shifted, whether the concerns agents were raising in earlier questionnaires have started to show up in the market data in the lead-up to the Act, and what agents on the ground were reporting immediately before the legislation came into force on 1 May 2026.
The Act is only just live; it is too early to measure its full impact. What we can do is take stock of the mood, the market behaviour in anticipation of it, and what letting agents now need to navigate.
A note on the data: This article distinguishes throughout between agent sentiment (survey responses) and market data (LonRes transaction and pricing indices). Survey figures relate exclusively to lettings practitioner respondents across four consecutive surveys: n=112 (Summer 2024), n=131 (Spring 2025), n=145 (Autumn 2025), n=111 (Spring 2026). Market data is drawn from the LonRes Prime London Market Update Q1 2026 and Winter Edition 2025/26.
What Agents Have Been Saying
From Spring 2025 onwards, a consistent theme ran through the open-text responses to the LonRes Agent Survey: regulation, taxation and rising costs were prompting landlords to reassess whether remaining in the private rented sector made financial sense.
“Given the current headwinds facing potential landlords, starting with mortgage rates, taxation and ending with the Renters’ Rights Bill, I do not see the level of lettings properties increasing, quite the opposite.”
By Autumn 2025, agents were reporting properties actively moving from the lettings market to sales. By Spring 2026, with the 1 May commencement date imminent, the mood had shifted from concern to confirmation. Of the 92 agents who responded to the open question on the RRA’s impact, the majority described the same dynamic: landlords selling, stock tightening, and tenants growing in confidence.
35 landlords have already decided to sell this year. Each time a property comes up for re-let, the landlord automatically asks for a sales valuation.”
Landlords who are not inclined to enter into a tenancy with no fixed end date have either withdrawn from the market, or have decided to sell.”
Tenants are being selective with their searches this time around because they realise they could get a good deal and perhaps forecast minimal rent increases for following years.”
There is a more optimistic signal at the very top of the market. Several agents noted growing demand from high-net-worth tenants, including domestic buyers who would usually be purchasing above £10m but are choosing to rent while the sales market settles. This is a positive counterweight to the falling demand signal in the wider £5,000+ per week data, and suggests the super prime rental market has a cushion that others do not.
What the Numbers Actually Show
Sentiment and transaction data do not always move in lockstep, and the distinction matters particularly here. The question is not whether the Renters’ Rights Act has changed the market — it is only just in force — but whether the anticipation of it has. On balance, the answer across both survey responses and market data is yes: landlord behaviour, stock levels and demand patterns all started shifting before the legislation arrived, in ways broadly consistent with what agents were flagging in earlier surveys.
In Q4 2025, prime London rents fell on an annual basis for the first time in several years, reaching −2.6%. But growth returned in Q1 2026: the LonRes Prime London Rental Index recorded growth across prime London and prime central London. Despite the Q4 2025 dip, average rents remain more than 30% above pre-pandemic levels and yields are rising.
Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025
Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025
Q1 2026
On supply, the picture is genuinely constrained but improving. Both instructions and agreed lets remain around 50% below pre-pandemic levels (2017–2019) across prime London, though both metrics recovered through 2025. It is worth noting that the Q1 2026 annual rises in instructions and lets partly reflect agents listing a higher proportion of their actual stock on portals — a structural shift the Agent Survey data flags as meaning the headline percentage rises likely overstate the true improvement in availability.
Agent sentiment on pricing has tracked this uncertainty closely. The share of lettings respondents forecasting rising rents fell from 74% in Summer 2024 to 61% in Spring 2026, while those forecasting falls roughly doubled from 14% to 27%. This aligns closely with the actual Q1 2026 data: 61% of Spring 2026 respondents expect rental growth in 2026, with 1–5% the most popular forecast — in line with the +2.0% currently being recorded.
Activity sentiment has shifted more markedly. In Summer 2024, 46% of respondents expected lettings activity to be higher than the prior year; by Spring 2026 that had fallen to 31%, with 41% expecting it to be lower. This is a sentiment reading and should be read alongside the actual data, which shows lets agreed finishing 2025 broadly in line with 2024.
The clearest finding is the bifurcation by price band. Demand for lettings at the sub-£1,000 per week level is robust: 45% of agents reported increased demand against 14% reporting a decrease. Above £5,000 per week, the position reverses: 66% of agents reported falling demand against just 13% reporting growth.
Section 13 Rent Reviews: What Changes and What It Means
The Renters’ Rights Act came into force on 1 May 2026. One of its most significant practical implications for letting agents — and the one that will affect the most transactions over time — is the new framework for rent increases under Section 13.
- From 1 May 2026, existing rent review clauses in tenancy agreements can no longer be used.
- All rent increases must go through the Section 13 process: written notice to the tenant at least two months in advance using Form 4A.
- Increases are permitted no more than once per year, at a level no higher than the open market rent.
- Tenants can refer the proposed increase to the First-tier Property Tribunal.
- The new rent takes effect from the start of the next rent period following the tribunal’s determination.
This is a legal change, not a sentiment shift. Agents who have been accustomed to using tenancy renewal as the natural rent reset moment, or who have relied on contractual rent review clauses, will need to adjust their practice. The Section 13 route is now the only route.
The practical consequence is straightforward: when a landlord wants to increase rent, they need to be able to demonstrate that the proposed level reflects the open market rent. If a tenant challenges at tribunal, the quality of the evidence the agent can produce will determine the outcome. Portal asking rents — aspirational rather than achieved — carry limited weight. Independent, transaction-based achieved-rent data is what tribunals are looking for.
The good news for agents is that navigating this process well is also a genuine value-add to landlord clients. Being able to arrive at a Section 13 rent review with robust market rent evidence, respond quickly to tenant challenges, and avoid tribunal delays is exactly the kind of service that strengthens a letting agent’s position as an indispensable part of the process.
“Majority of landlords have sold or in the process of selling. Stock is a big issue and pushing rents up on upcoming rentals due to shortage.”
The LonRes Rental Checker
The LonRes Rental Checker is LonRes’s solution to Section 13 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. It provides letting agents with robust, impartial evidence for market rent determinations — exactly the kind of independent, achieved-rent data that carries weight at the First-tier Tribunal.
Through LonRes, agents are joining forces to create a shared, independent source of rental data that accurately reflects what properties actually let for — not what landlords hope to achieve. That distinction matters. Portal asking rents are aspirational, not rents actually paid. Achieved rents are what the market confirms, and under Section 13, that is the only data that counts.
Should a rent review go to the First-tier Property Tribunal, Rental Checker data will be used to justify the rental increase and must be reviewed by the tribunal. For agents, this is not just about compliance — it confirms your value in the letting process and makes you indispensable to landlords navigating rent reviews.
Your data remains entirely under your control: properties are anonymised, not visible for commission sharing, and full details are only disclosed with your permission if a tribunal requires them.
Already signed up
The network effect matters: the more agents contribute, the richer and more representative the data becomes for everyone.
Sources
LonRes Agent Survey Summer 2024 (n=112 lettings practitioners); Spring 2025 (n=131); Autumn 2025 (n=145); Spring 2026 (n=111). Surveys conducted biannually among agents operating across London. All survey figures cited are sentiment readings from lettings practitioner respondents and do not represent transaction data.
Market data: LonRes Prime London Market Update Winter Edition 2025/26 and Q1 2026 Quarterly Report.
RRA legal context: Forsters LLP / LonRes Renters’ Rights Act webinar, March 2026; Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026. All agent quotations drawn from open-text survey responses, with minor grammatical tidying for readability.