Half of private landlords in England are keeping rent prices unchanged, marking a significant shift in the rental market as property owners increasingly prioritise retaining reliable tenants over securing higher monthly income.
New research from the TDS Charitable Foundation reveals that 50% of landlords avoided raising rents over the previous 12 months, compared with 39% in the previous year’s survey.
The 11-percentage-point increase suggests that more property owners are reconsidering how they balance rental income, long-term tenant relationships and affordability.
The findings, released in October 2026, are based on responses from 2,043 private landlords across England. They show that 47% of landlords who maintained existing rents wanted to retain their tenants, while 44% were concerned about the financial pressures facing households.
However, the research also exposes a widening difference between smaller, mortgage-free landlords and larger property investors. Although many smaller landlords are maintaining existing rents, almost half of those surveyed have increased their charges, often because of rising maintenance expenses and operating costs.
Importantly, the survey was conducted between 26 March and 13 April 2026, before the main tenancy reforms of the Renters’ Rights Act took effect on 1 May. Its results therefore provide a pre-reform benchmark rather than evidence that the new legislation has caused landlords to freeze rents.
Why Are More Landlords Choosing Stable Rents Over Higher Returns?
Keeping a reliable tenant is becoming an increasingly important financial consideration for landlords, particularly those who own only one or two properties.
Finding a replacement tenant can involve advertising expenses, referencing checks, letting agent fees, cleaning, repairs and potentially several weeks without rental income. Even when market rents are rising, the additional income from a new tenancy may not immediately compensate for the cost of losing an existing occupant.
Consider a landlord charging £1,500 per month who is thinking about increasing the rent by 4%. That would generate an additional £60 monthly, or £720 annually. However, losing just one month’s rent during a change of tenancy would cost £1,500 in rental income alone.
It would take 25 months of collecting that additional £60 to offset the lost month’s rent, before considering other expenses. This simplified calculation illustrates why some landlords may prefer continuity rather than pursuing every possible rent increase.
The full TDS Charitable Foundation landlord research provides another important explanation. Among landlords who had not raised rents, 42% said they were already making an acceptable profit, while 25% considered their property a long-term investment.
Interestingly, only 6% reported that tenants had specifically requested or negotiated for rents to remain unchanged.
This suggests that many rent-freeze decisions are initiated by landlords themselves, rather than resulting from direct negotiations with tenants. For property owners who have established satisfactory returns, maintaining regular payments and avoiding vacancies can be more attractive than maximising short-term rental income.
The differences between landlords become clearer when property debt and portfolio size are considered.
According to the research, 43% of surveyed landlords had no property debt or borrowing. This group was less likely to have increased rents than landlords carrying mortgage commitments.
Just 38% of landlords with one rental property had raised rents, compared with 60% of those owning five or more properties. Among landlords who had never used a letting agent, the figure was even lower at 32%.
By comparison, rent increases were reported by 59% of landlords owning at least one house in multiple occupation, 55% of those with annual incomes of £100,000 or more, and 54% of landlords using letting agents.
These findings challenge the assumption that all private landlords respond similarly to rental market pressures.
A landlord who owns a mortgage-free property may have greater flexibility to absorb increased costs. Someone managing several mortgaged properties, professional management fees and maintenance obligations may have less room to leave rental income unchanged.
The distinction is important because landlords with larger portfolios can influence more rental households, even though the survey’s headline percentage measures individual landlords rather than the proportion of all rented homes experiencing a freeze.
Nearly Half of Landlords Are Still Increasing Rent Prices
Despite the growing number of rent freezes, the research does not suggest that rent increases are disappearing.
Some 48% of landlords reported increasing rent on at least one property during the previous 12 months, while another 2% were unsure whether they had done so.
The detailed findings identify several financial pressures behind these decisions. Among landlords who raised rents, 45% cited the wider increase in living costs, 39% pointed to higher property maintenance or running costs, and 36% wanted their rents to reflect local market levels.
Higher mortgage costs were cited by 23%, while 20% referred to recent tax changes. Another 20% identified letting agent advice, and 17% said anticipated changes restricting the frequency of rent increases had influenced their decision.
This indicates that the Renters’ Rights Act was already affecting some landlords’ thinking before its main provisions commenced, although the survey cannot establish its subsequent impact on rental prices.Dr Jennifer Harris, Head of Policy, Research and Social Impact at The Dispute Service Group, welcomed the growing proportion of landlords maintaining existing rents.
“It is encouraging to see more landlords choosing to keep rents unchanged,” she said in the research announcement.
However, Harris also emphasised that decisions about rent levels involve competing pressures, including tenant affordability, maintenance bills and operating expenses. Her assessment highlights a central tension in the private rented sector: tenants need predictable housing costs, while landlords must maintain financially sustainable properties.
Those competing pressures help explain why a national survey can show greater restraint without guaranteeing that individual renters will avoid future increases.
Rents Across England Continue Rising Despite More Landlords Freezing Prices
The growing number of landlords keeping rent prices unchanged comes at a time when official data still shows rental inflation across the country.
The latest Office for National Statistics rental market figures, published on 21 October 2026, recorded an average monthly private rent of £1,466 in England during September.
That represented an annual increase of 4%, equivalent to £56 per month.
Across the UK, average private rents reached £1,406, an increase of 3.8% compared with September 2025.
Regional differences were particularly noticeable. England’s North West recorded annual rental growth of 5.7%, while London and the South East experienced the lowest annual increases among English regions, both at 3.5%.
These figures do not contradict the TDS findings.
The landlord survey measures how many landlords raised rents on any of their rental properties within a particular period. By contrast, the ONS measures changes in rental prices across the wider market, including both new and existing tenancies.
A large landlord may increase rents across several homes, while numerous smaller landlords keep charges unchanged. The combined result can still be positive rental inflation.
Furthermore, a rent freeze does not necessarily mean that a property is affordable. A tenant paying a relatively high existing rent may receive no increase for a year but still spend a significant proportion of their income on housing.
The emerging picture is therefore one of uneven rental pressures rather than a nationwide halt to increasing rents.
What Does the Renters’ Rights Act Mean for Landlords Keeping Rents Unchanged?
The timing of the survey makes the Renters’ Rights Act particularly relevant to understanding future changes in landlord behaviour.
Since 1 May 2026, the principal reforms have changed how most assured periodic tenancies operate in England. Landlords can generally increase rent only once a year, cannot introduce an increase during the first 12 months of a new tenancy, and must provide at least two months’ notice using the prescribed Form 4A under the Section 13 procedure.
Tenants can challenge a proposed increase that exceeds open-market rent through the First-tier Tribunal.
The government’s official guidance on rent increases for landlords explains the current requirements.
The reforms do not impose a general freeze on rental prices or establish a fixed percentage cap on increases. They regulate the process and frequency of increases while allowing rents to reflect the market, subject to the relevant legal protections.
This distinction matters for landlords making long-term investment decisions. Some may prefer predictable rents and stable tenancies, while others may review charges more carefully because increases cannot be introduced as frequently as before.
There are also wider considerations around recovering possession and returning properties to the rental market. Restrictions on re-letting following certain possession grounds may influence decisions about tenant retention, as examined in the changes introduced through the Renters’ Rights Act letting restrictions.
Separate research from The Deposit Protection Service reinforces the importance of monitoring how landlord decisions develop after implementation.
In September 2026, the organisation reported that 32% of landlord respondents planned to leave rents unchanged, while only 19% said they automatically increased rents every year.
Matt Trevett, Managing Director at The DPS, described landlord respondents as being in “wait and see” mode in the period leading up to the legislation’s commencement.
The 32% figure measures future intentions in a different survey, whereas the TDS figure of 50% records past behaviour. They should not be treated as contradictory estimates of the same measure.
Rent Arrears Are Falling, but Financial Pressure Remains
Another important finding concerns tenants struggling to keep up with their monthly payments.
The TDS survey found that 26% of landlords had at least one tenant in rent arrears, compared with 29% in the previous year’s survey.
While this represents an improvement, it does not necessarily mean that tenant financial difficulties have disappeared.
The Foundation’s separate 2026 Voice of the Tenant research found that 19% of tenants were behind on their rent, its highest recorded proportion across successive survey waves. These figures measure different groups: one records landlords with at least one tenant in arrears, while the other measures tenants reporting arrears themselves.
The responses to missed payments also reveal that many landlords are attempting to find solutions before pursuing possession proceedings.
Among landlords reporting how they addressed arrears, 42% had spoken directly with tenants about their options, while 39% had provided information about tenants’ rights and available support.
Another 21% had agreed repayment arrangements, and 17% had offered temporary rent reductions or rent-free periods.
Nevertheless, 21% reported having applied or planned to apply for an eviction order, illustrating that financial difficulties can still lead to serious consequences when a workable solution cannot be found.
For households receiving financial assistance, understanding whether Universal Credit can help cover rent may also be important when discussing affordability and repayment arrangements with landlords.
The findings suggest that maintaining a tenancy has value beyond avoiding the immediate expense of finding a new property. It can also create opportunities for landlords and tenants to resolve financial difficulties before they result in homelessness or prolonged rental losses.
Could Rent Freezes Become More Common Throughout 2027?
The latest evidence offers reasons for cautious optimism, but there is insufficient information to establish whether the proportion of landlords freezing rents will continue rising.
Mortgage rates, repairs, taxation, household incomes and local housing supply will remain influential. Some landlords may decide that retaining existing tenants is the most financially sustainable approach, while others could face circumstances that make increases unavoidable.
The TDS survey also found that 44% of landlords intended to maintain their existing property portfolios, while 28% were considering acquiring additional properties and 25% were considering sales. These intentions underline how rental pricing decisions form part of wider investment strategies rather than being made in isolation.
For tenants, the strongest immediate benefit of an unchanged rent is greater certainty over household spending. However, the continued rise in average rents means that affordability remains a considerable challenge, particularly for people entering new tenancies.
For landlords, the calculation increasingly involves more than comparing current rent with the highest available local asking price. Tenant reliability, property condition, mortgage commitments, potential vacancy periods and long-term investment returns all matter.
The next TDS survey will be particularly significant because it can begin to show how landlords have behaved following implementation of the Renters’ Rights Act, rather than relying solely on pre-reform responses.
For now, the most important development is clear: half of England’s surveyed landlords have chosen not to increase rents, and retaining good tenants has become a leading reason for that decision.
Yet with 48% still reporting rent increases and official figures showing continuing rental inflation, the market remains divided between owners able to offer stability and those facing pressure to generate higher returns.
