Carol of Stamford it was suggested that the govt buy up these flats for social housing, but the Govt replied in PMQ's that they were not all up to the standard required for social housing.

V Cooper, Somerset, UK

I've just put rent up on my BTLs. Totally depends on where they are, facilities, quality etc.

Phil, London,

The govt announced a housing shortage but we had 250k empty houses, more were built but BTL by people who already had houses. Now half finished houses are boarded up. Was there a shortage of actual housing or a shortage of affordable housing , rents are falling landlords arn't getting what they ask

carol, stamford uk,

I hope the mortgage companies are being informed of the changes in circumstance and changing to buy to let mortgages.
This will make it easy for the banks to reposes when the defaults come.

andy, winchester,

Surprise anyone? As the Mother of all Bubbles - the UK residential real estate market since 94 - bursts, the consequences seem obvious: prices will fall until the market clears. The glut in rentals is just another manifestation. Prices still need to drop 40-50% before sanity is restored.

Paul, London, UK

good, as a tenant who cannot afford to buy i am happy this greedy lot who help push up prices are now going to catch a very bad cold

Gavin Hale, bury ,

The downturn proper hasn't begun yet. This is the first 'wave'. Rents in Streatham are cheaper and some include council tax. Others are still at 'boom' prices.

John, London,

The term home-movers is confusing the issue. This probably consists of BTL's and ordinary househloders. The latter will of course need to rent thus keeping supply at the same level for that segment of the market. The BTL's will add supply and demand will fall in the current market reducing rents.

Sean, London, UK

Rents will also fall because of the recession in general.

Np, England, UK

In an area of South Cambs that I've monitored over the last 3 years there were an average of 33 properties for rent up to March 2008. From March to the beginning of October that figure rose to about 110 and since then has risen to 180+. Panic appears to be setting in!

JK, Cambridge, UK

Robert, add to that the 'gazzundering' that is taking place as tenants use the fear of empty buy to lets to re-negotiate downwards their rent. I wouldn't want to be a buy to let landlord right now, particularly one who requires students to pay for a whole year even thouogh they occupy for less time

pd, bristol,

Hugh, yes in fact it is different this time. It's worse.

Paul, London, UK

They only have themselves to blame - many tenants can't pass landlords/estate agents credit requirements...they must be AAA or the landlord can't insure the rental payments...something has to give...

isobel, ashford, uk

For home owners that are unable to sell their property that chose to rent it out, the same owner would rent another property. Superficially the net effect is that the "surplus" is cancelled out. But if the majority of the flow is away from London then this could create hot spots of excess property

jon williams, london, uk

I agree with Robert's first sentence. This article makes no sense. If rents have fallen, there's some other reason. I would guess that a lot of young renters have moved back in with their parents, because their income has dropped, or disappeared.

Nigel, Berkeley, CA, USA

Bob Smith, you are not daft but there are 2-3m second homes - many are now being lived in full time as people rent out their first home (which they can't sell) - other people are moving in with relatives and into their own unlet B2L property - people are very flexible on size & location when pushed.

Huw Sayer, London, England

I was looking for a flat in Woking last week and all landlords were prepared to accept a reduction of up to 10% on the advertised rent. Even the agents were selling them out. Tennants check your contracts, most rent reviews are pegged to RPI, if it goes negative demand a rent reduction.

adam, london,

The greed days are over. There is no point in buying a property to let, unless you have 50% equity, as you will not get an adequate return to refect the risk, cover agents commissions and property maintenance. Property letting is back to being a money mans game. Good riddence to greed.

Gary, Warrington,

How does this make sense? Am I dumb or am I correct in saying rents could only go down if these houses were already EMPTY? If they are empty, where did the previous people go? Mars? America? If they weren't empty, where will those people go? Selling a house is done when you want to move house?

Bob Smith, Chiswick, England

None of this bothers me. I have sold all 8 of my buy to lets in the last 2 years and made a big profit. Now I'm 4 months here and 8 months in Florida living off the profits.

Max, Reading, uk

This is so not true - I have 20 properties and risen the rents by around 15% on most of them - people arent buying so the competition for places to rent is huge. Its not a bad time to be a BTL landlord - especially with the rate cuts - yields are going up - finally! Every cloud....

djevans, Clapham,

Robert HK. Lots of people bought properties to flip (sell for profit within short time) and kept them empty as rented properties difficult to sell. Now that selling would loose money, they are releasing onto rental market, hence lots more supply. The years of easy money and greed are over. For now.

Arthur, Beijing,

Robert has a good point. Simple supply and demand laws should mean that if there are plenty of tenants and not enough properties rents would still rise. Perhaps people are now out of work and afraid to leave their parent's home or unable to rent. Glad to see the B T L profiteers are now suffering.

Richard Brady, Kiev, Ukraine

Time for intervention! Impose rent controls -50% at least in London and quality controls on all private sector landlords.
Make rental contracts of indefinite duration and quality as a legals responsibilty as in Germany and prices can become rationally aligned with house production costs.

heiko khoo, london, uk

People already live somewhere, even if it isn't perfect. Most aren't forced to move other than by desire, so they can just stay put. Costs of everything will wind down now and unemployment will increase. It is the 1930s revisited, except that all sectors of the economy will suffer this time.

C Smith, Norwich, UK

Now it seems the media has gone from denying the property crash, to putting a 'bottom' under it at 30%. The truth is nobody knows how far this will go, because nothing like this has happened before!

steven pill, bedale, uk

It is obvious to me, what is happening at point in time is all that can be trusted. The predictions of the future have been wrong, why should we trust them again. In the summer they could not predict a few months, now we should trust them with what will happen in the coming years.

Mike, Cambridge,

I doubt this even covers the previous years speculative appreciation in rents yet. For too long renters let themselves be squeezed by landlords because they thought they had no choice.

Caoilte, Winchester,

Whats all the fuss about, isn't it basic economics that revenue from rent is a factor based on the cost/value of the property and return of investment, So if property values go down, obviously sooner or later rents will floow proportionately.

Mark, Bournemouth, UK

in my experience renting has been fairly good for the last 5 or 6 years. Just so much choice out there, with more coming how can prices not fall? Prices look to be heading down in all types of home.

Kevin Davies, London, UK

But... but.... but.... its different this time?

Isn't it?

Hugh, London, United Kingdom

And the RICS lettings survey of July 2008 said: "Many are willing to 'hold' and await the return of capital appreciation. Becoming a landlord is now an increasingly profitable option with rising rents and yields offering good returns."

That did not seem to be very good advice, did it....

David, London, UK

But the number of houses is the same so why should this affect rentals? Isn't the fall in rents due to the fact that people can't afford as much as opposed to would be vendors putting their houses in the rental market?

Robert, Hong Kong,

This is absolute fiction. At least in Hounslow.

Fabio C, London, UK