Despite tenant demand barely changing, house share availability is dropping, analysis from HMO management platform COHO has found.<\/p>\n
In England the number of available house shares has fallen by -15.2% between June and September 2025, raising the question of whether the market is experiencing a landlord exodus.<\/p>\n
In fact, demand has fallen in 11 of the 12 major English cities that COHO analysed, with Bradford (-59.1%) and Leeds (-55.4%) seeing more than half of the available stock leave the market. Meanwhile, stock has diminished by more than 20% in Manchester (-33.3%), Brighton (-32.9%), Leicester (-24.6%), Nottingham (-23.7%), and Sheffield (-21%)<\/p>\n
London is the only city to have seen an increase in house share stock, with numbers rising by 4.7% between June and September.<\/p>\n
Vann Vogstad, COHO founder and chief executive, said: \u201cAny data that points towards a declining supply of shared houses should be a real cause for concern on Downing Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe HMO sector is a vital tool in the nation\u2019s battle against the housing drought, but the sector is facing hard battles from two fronts.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst there\u2019s the fact that the entire sector is being unfairly maligned on the Right of the political spectrum, placed at the centre of some kind of batty migrant conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already know that this is causing planning councils to shy away from approving new shared living schemes, but is it now also causing HMO landlords to cut their losses and sell up?\u201d<\/p>\n
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He added: \u201cSecondly, the incoming Renters\u2019 Rights Bill looks like it is going to given the green light, full steam ahead, without proper consideration given to the ways in which it disincentives landlords, again causing many to leave the rental rector.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we\u2019ve got Labour\u2019s proposal of taxing rental income. This in particular is going to be a huge blow to HMO landlords whose rental income per property tends to be greater than your standard buy to let.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t be surprised now if swathes of HMO landlords decide that enough is enough and leave the sector altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this is indeed happening, there\u2019s no prize for guessing what comes next. Further rental supply shortages which in turn means a massive hike in rent prices. Everybody loses.\u201d<\/p>\n
One good reason for the number of available house shares declining between the months of June and September is students. As summer came to a close, many university students will have secured last-minute house shares in time for the start of a new academic year, snapping up a good potion of the available market, particularly in the big uni cities like Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, and Sheffield.<\/p>\n
However, COHO said this alone does not explain why we\u2019ve seen an overall trend of simultaneous decline in both supply and demand for house shares.<\/p>\n
Perhaps they\u2019re being driven out by the increased HMO stigma being peddled by certain corners of Westminster and the press in relation to England\u2019s migrant housing crisis. Or maybe they\u2019re choosing to cash out ahead of the Renter\u2019s Rights Bill being passed into law, which is expected to contain a raft of new, costly regulations that landlords will have to adhere to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite tenant demand barely changing, house share availability is dropping, analysis from HMO management platform COHO has found. In England the number of available house shares has fallen by -15.2% between June and September 2025, raising the question of whether the market is experiencing a landlord exodus. In fact, demand has fallen in 11 of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-second-home"],"yoast_head":"\n