According to research undertaken by the National Residential Landlords Association and the BVA BDRC, 63 per cent of landlords have a buy-to-let mortgage on at least one property.
Within this, 29 per cent plan to remortgage at least one of their properties this year.
Bank of England figures estimated that by the end of the year monthly repayments for buy-to-let landlords could rise by £175, and a fifth of landlords monthly repayments could increase by over £300.
The NRLA said that rising mortgage payments would aggravate the already critical supply problem in the rental market.
Around 65 per cent of landlords in England and Wales said demand had risen during the last quarter of 2022. This is an increase from 56 per cent in the same period the year before.
However, just under a third of landlords say they plan to cut their size of their portfolio this year, which the NRLA said was the highest level seen in six years.
Only nine per cent said they planned to grow their portfolio in the next 12 months, a fall from 14 per cent in Q3 2021.
The NRLA has called for the government to follow the Levelling Up Committee’s advice last week to review the impact of recent tax rises on the sector and make the sector “more financially attractive to landlords”.
The report, which was released last week, said that there was no doubt that smaller landlords were “currently critical” to the rental market but the impact of measures that would make it less attractive for such landlords would need to be “carefully thought through”.
Ben Beadle, NRLA’s chief executive, said: “It is time the government stepped in and accepted calls by the NRLA, the Select Committee and others for tax measures to encourage the supply of homes to rent. Without this, renters face a bleak future as finding somewhere to live becomes increasingly harder.”
