Distressed Assets

When the Renters' Rights Act was going through Parliament, I said the risk was fewer homes to rent and higher rents. The main reforms took effect in England on 1 May 2026. Four months later, the early evidence points that way.

Landlord Today reports a Lettings Hub survey of letting agents in which, 80% said landlords are becoming more cautious when selecting tenants 95% lacked confidence in the courts.

Nearly two thirds reported falling rental supply.

Beth Richardson of The Lettings Hub warns that "excessive caution risks shrinking the supply of homes".

Zoopla's September rental market report states that available rental homes are down 3% year on year, and there are now 5.3 enquiries for every home listed, the highest for 22 months. Rent growth on new lets is forecast to accelerate from 2.6% today to 4 to 5% by the end of 2026.

In Liverpool and the surrounding area, it will be greater than this.

The BBC headline was blunt: "Rent rises set to speed up in gloomy forecast for tenants".

That is GCSE level economics. Reduce supply while demand remains the same or rises, and price (rent) rises.

Zoopla adds that market forces are shaping rental trends more than new regulation. I would not argue with that, but regulation acts on the supply side of those same market forces.

Zoopla's own report says new landlord investment is still muted because of higher costs and more regulation. Rules that make possession slower and less certain when a tenancy goes wrong are part of the problem.

Landlords are doing what anyone does when the rules of engagement change. Unless you are a 'gold plated' tenant with an unblemished record who can pass referencing to insurance standards, you will struggle to be accepted, even if you can afford the rent.

Stronger rights are valuable, but a right to stay in a home is worth little to someone who cannot get through the front door. Protecting tenants requires a rental market in which responsible landlords have the confidence to stay and invest.

A reform should be judged by whether people can find a decent home they can afford.

Property Developer Show Manchester 9th September 2026. Meet Dominic Farrell for the latest insights on property auctions in the UK.

The Auction Market Has Just Sent Us A Warning

Yesterday’s Venmore online auction in Liverpool contained 41 lots. Only 7 sold under the hammer.

A further 4 sold prior, 7 were postponed and 2 were withdrawn.

Strip out the properties that never reached the auction and the numbers are stark:

• 28 lots were actually offered
• 7 sold
• 21 failed to sell
• True auction day clearance: 25%

Even using the more favourable calculation, adding the four sold prior properties and excluding the postponed and withdrawn lots, the clearance rate was only 34.4%.

The recent North West auction market average was approximately 65.5%.

This wasn’t simply a quiet auction. It was a very weak result.

Auctions are one of the clearest measures of property market sentiment. There is nowhere to hide. A property either attracts competitive bidding and reaches its reserve, or it doesn’t.

The wider economic background matters.

The Bank of England Base Rate remains at 3.75%, but that figure doesn’t tell the whole story. The 10-year gilt yield reached 5.29% yesterday, its highest level since 2007, while the 30-year yield approached 5.9%, close to a three-decade high.

Those movements affect market funding costs and ultimately feed through into mortgages, bridging finance and investor returns.

Rightmove’s average two year fixed mortgage rate has risen from 4.95% to 5.09%. Average new asking prices fell by 2% in August, the largest August fall since 2018, and the number of homes for sale is at its highest level for this time of year since 2014.

Buyers therefore have more choice, more expensive finance and less reason to chase marginal deals.

Yet the auction result also tells us something else.

Every property that sold under the hammer achieved more than its guide price. Buyers are still there, and they will compete aggressively when they see genuine value.

What they will no longer do is bid on an unrealistic reserve.

For investors, the most interesting number isn’t the seven properties that sold. It is the 21 that didn’t.

Those vendors have now tested the open market and received their answer. Some will remain unrealistic. Others will become increasingly motivated.

That is where the opportunity begins.

The bond market is warning the Government that spending, borrowing and political promises have consequences. The auction market is warning vendors that pricing also has consequences.

Cash, certainty and the ability to move quickly are becoming increasingly valuable. The next deals may not be found in the auction itself. They may be found in the days and weeks afterwards.

We have a buyers' market and deals to be done.

The next Distressed Assets Workshop is Saturday 17th October 2026 in London and LIVE ONLINE - Further information can be found here:

https://www.distressedassets.co.uk/property-auction-courses

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025: a highly predictable outcome

by Dominic Farrell

Many of us have been warning about this for the past couple of years.

The Renters’ Rights Act may have given tenants more protection on paper, but it has done nothing to address their biggest problem: a shortage of homes. As landlords leave the market, supply falls. At the same time, demand continues to increase. The inevitable result is greater competition and higher rents.

There is another consequence which receives far less attention.

If it becomes more difficult, expensive and time-consuming for a landlord to regain possession when something goes wrong, landlords will protect themselves at the beginning of the tenancy.

That means increasingly strict referencing. Stable employment, an excellent credit history, a strong income and, in many cases, a homeowner guarantor.

Unless you are effectively a “gold-plated” tenant, securing a property will become considerably harder.

The people most likely to suffer are those at the lower end of the market: applicants with irregular earnings, previous credit problems, benefit income or no access to a guarantor. They will be competing for fewer homes while landlords become increasingly risk-averse.

Tenant protection is important, but legislation cannot repeal the basic laws of supply and demand.

If the Government genuinely wants to help tenants, it must increase housing supply, encourage responsible landlords to remain in the market and create a fast, effective court process for dealing with genuine breaches.

Instead, we have fewer properties, higher rents and more tenants being rejected.

Highly predictable, and entirely avoidable.

How Labour's Renters' Rights Act has made life worse for tenants Laura Meyer, 28, told the Daily Mail she has found it impossible to find an affordable one-bedroom flat in south-west London since the Renters' Rights Act came in.

How to Use AI For Property Auctions

How to use AI for Property Auctions AI has changed property auctions. Legal packs that once took days to read are now sifted in minutes for pennies. Pre-bid enquiries, comparable sales, refurbishment costings, yield modelling, all sorted at machine speed. The private investor now sits at the same table as the institutional buyer. But....

30,000 Landlords Sell Up - Why Smart Investors Should See Opportunity

Thirty thousand landlords have left the buy-to-let market. That is the headline. And, depending on which side of the argument you are on, it will either be presented as proof that landlords have finally had enough, or as evidence that the private rented sector needed reform in the first place.

But if you are a serious property investor, I want you to look beyond the politics and beyond the headline. Because when a market changes, it creates risk for people who are unprepared and opportunity for people who understand what is actually happening.

The old model of buying an average house through an estate agent, paying the full retail price, putting in a tenant and hoping that inflation bails you out has been under pressure for years. Tax, interest rates, regulation, maintenance and compliance have all tightened the margins. Many landlords are deciding that they have had enough.

That creates a genuine problem for tenants if the supply of rented homes falls. But it also creates an opportunity for smart investors who know how to buy below market value and operate professionally. The properties have to go somewhere. The question is: who is going to buy them, at what price, and what will the numbers look like when they do?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rc2oy4G7CyvmVrj4z7QDZ?si=IFvohU6RSZ-C7ODOj-wTKw

30,000 Landlords Sell Up - An Opportunity For Smart Investors The Property Auctions Podcast · Episode

Why I don’t pay for specialist property auction software.

I regularly receive emails from people selling software designed for property auction buyers.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been perfectly pleasant and is simply trying to build a business.

My answer, however, is always the same:

“Thanks, but I don’t need it.”

Why?

Because general purpose AI is already extraordinarily capable and improving at a remarkable pace.

As my mentees know, I’ve long been a fan of Anthropic, whose Claude models are widely used within the legal profession. I generally use Fable 5, although Opus also does the job extremely well while using less of my allowance.

Now there’s another serious contender: OpenAI’s GPT‑5.6 Sol. It has several reasoning levels; for detailed auction work, I use Max.

The accompanying graphic shows just some of what it can do:

• Filter large numbers of auction lots
• Analyse legal packs
• Identify missing documents
• Flag title, lease and compliance risks
• Gather market intelligence and comparable evidence
• Assess value, costs and potential exit strategies
• Produce focused questions for the solicitor

It is outstanding.

For around £20 a month, you can carry out a remarkable number of these initial assessments, provided you choose the appropriate model and manage your usage sensibly.

I’ve only been using these tools since April, just four months. In that short time, the quality and depth of the information they produce have improved dramatically.

I’m not packaging this up and selling it. The technology is already available to everyone.

Build your own process. Personalise it. Test it. Perfect it.

One important caveat:

No AI is 100% accurate.

Use AI to filter lots, interrogate legal packs and expose potential risks. Once you’ve identified a property you’re seriously considering, instruct a solicitor to review the legal pack and report on it.

AI for reconnaissance. A solicitor for the attack (legal sign-off).

Until AI comes with professional indemnity insurance, that remains the sensible approach.

Distressed Assets | Property Investments | Property Auctions | Training Distressed Assets source below-market value UK property investments at property auctions and also run property auction courses and mentoring programmes for private investors.