The Rent Smart Wales register contained 213,463 properties and 100,422 landlords in May 2026. During the month, the number of registered properties fell by 532 and the number of landlords by 290.
This continued a longer-term decline. Wales had 4,089 fewer registered rental properties than in May 2021, a reduction of almost 2%. At the same time, the average number of properties per registered landlord rose to 2.13. This suggests that the sector is not only reducing but also becoming more concentrated.
Policy must support a diverse and sustainable sector
Propertymark has consistently warned that reducing the supply of private rented homes places further pressure on tenants, rents, and local authority housing services.
A healthy rental market needs landlords of different sizes. Larger professional portfolios have an important role, but Wales must remain an attractive place for responsible individual landlords and smaller investors too.
We have called for governments across the UK to review the cumulative impact of tax and regulatory changes on private landlords. In Wales, we have urged the Welsh Government to consider reducing the additional Land Transaction Tax burden for investment in long-term rental homes and to improve access to support for bringing empty properties back into use.
The Rent Smart Wales figures strengthen the case for policies that retain existing landlords, encourage responsible investment and increase supply where it is most needed. Without action, Wales risks having fewer rental homes, concentrated among fewer owners and increasingly clustered in a small number of locations.
A third of properties controlled by 5% of landlords
Most registered landlords in Wales remain small-scale operators. Almost 70% own one property, while a further 25.56% own between two and five. However, the 5.15% of landlords with six or more properties control 34.91% of registered rental homes. At the top of the market, just 0.62% of landlords have at least 21 properties. Together, they control over 15% of the registered stock.
Individual and small portfolio landlords remain essential to the Welsh private rented sector, but the balance is shifting towards a smaller number of larger operators.
This could affect the type and location of homes available, as well as the ability of different landlords to meet rising tax, finance, and regulatory costs. Larger businesses may be better placed to spread these costs across a portfolio, while landlords with one or two properties have less room to do so.
Rental growth concentrated in three areas
Only three of Wales’s 22 local authority areas had more registered rental properties in May 2026 than five years earlier. Cardiff recorded by far the largest increase, gaining 3,798 properties. Swansea had 913 more properties, while Blaenau Gwent recorded a much smaller rise of 76. Every other area experienced a fall. The largest reductions were recorded in Gwynedd (- 845), Carmarthenshire (- 822), and Wrexham (- 746).
This points to an increasingly uneven market, with growth concentrated in Cardiff and Swansea, while many communities across north, west, and south Wales have lost registered rental homes.
This matters because a national total can hide serious local shortages. Tenants cannot always move to areas where supply is stronger, particularly when they need to remain close to work, schools, or support networks.
More properties but fewer landlords in the cities
Even in Cardiff and Swansea, where registered property numbers increased, the number of landlords operating in each area fell. Compared with May 2021, landlord numbers were down by 764 in Cardiff and 694 in Swansea. This suggests that growth in the two cities has been driven by landlords with larger portfolios rather than an increase in the overall number of investors.
Rent Smart Wales notes that local authority landlord figures cannot be added to produce a national total because one landlord may operate in several areas. However, every local authority recorded a reduction in the number of landlords operating over five years.
New registrations are not halting the decline
During May 2026, Rent Smart Wales recorded 1,680 new property registrations involving 686 landlords. However, the total number of registered properties fell by 532 during the month. This indicates a high level of turnover within the register, with new registrations outweighed by properties being removed, expiring, or otherwise ceasing to appear in the total.
It is not clear how much of the decline reflects landlords selling properties, moving them out of the long-term rental market, allowing registrations to expire, or administrative changes. These figures should not, therefore, be treated as a direct measure of landlord sales. However, the sustained downward trend deserves close attention.
