You should be asking all your landlords if they’re thinking of selling.

How many of you are contacting your landlords and asking whether they’re thinking of selling the homes you manage for them? Probably none of you, and that makes sense. You don’t want to put the idea in their head.

The problem is that a good number of your landlords are already having that conversation, and they won’t have it with you. They know you benefit from managing their property, and that you’re the one who’d tell them to keep going: bricks and mortar, demand’s up, rents will climb. So you hear about it when the decision’s made.

The numbers

• 31% of landlords with one or two homes plan to sell everything in the next year or two, and a further 23% plan to sell some (DPS landlord survey, May 2026, 1,007 landlords).
• 39% plan no change. In October 2025 that was 44% (same survey).
• Bigger landlords are still buying. In June 2026 landlords bought more homes than they sold, the first time since 2019 (Hamptons, Mortgage Solutions, 13 Jul 2026), and landlords were 13.3% of buyers in May 2026, the highest share since 2016 (Hamptons, Mortgage Solutions, 18 May 2026).
• Selling empty is the risky route. 51% of homes landlords put up for sale in 2025 didn’t sell (Hamptons, Mortgage Solutions, 13 Jul 2026), and nearly 1 in 4 agreed sales fall through at least once (TwentyEA, Q1 2026: 23.7%).

Watch it

About thirteen minutes. Why you should ask, what it’s costing you not to, and how to keep the home on your books when a landlord does sell.

Count the leak

An example, not a measured rate. Say an agency manages 1,000 homes and 5% sell in a year: that’s 50 homes. On a £1,400 rent (the UK average, ONS, August 2026) at 10% plus VAT, each home is £1,680 a year in fees. That’s £84,000 a year walking out the door, and at a 1.5 times multiple, £126,000 of book value.

Put your own numbers in. How many did you lose to sales last year, what’s your fee, and what would your accountant say a book like yours sells for?

The steps

1. Ask in the letter you already send. Renewals have gone, so you’re writing to landlords about the rent review anyway. Put the same question to every landlord each year: what would you like to do with this home over the next twelve months? Give them three options: keep letting as you are, sell with the tenant in, or sell it empty. Lay out what each one means, and let them decide.
2. Make the case for selling with the tenant in. The tenant stays in their home. The landlord gets rent right up to completion, and the buyer gets rent from the day it completes. Think about viewings too: a tenant whose landlord is selling to get them out, against a tenant who’s staying put. Who’s going to be more flexible?
3. Be straight about selling it empty. The tenant needs at least four months’ notice, and from the day it’s served the home can’t be let to anyone new until 12 months after the notice period runs out. If the sale falls through, that’s at least 16 months without a new tenant. And once a tenant knows you’re selling, many will move before they’re pushed, so the home can sit empty, with bills and no rent.
4. Put it on your website. Agency websites are all about the managed service, the market and local guides. Never anything for landlords thinking of moving on. They’re asking AI these questions anyway, so be the one helping them with the decision. Let them put in their own rent and see the two routes side by side.
5. Test the price off market. Offer it to your registered buyers first, through your sales team or a sales partner. You’re testing the price before it goes on the portals, rather than picking up a reduction label that other agents can see and use against you.
6. Have buyers ready. Alongside your investor page, add a sign-up: “Tenanted homes: be kept informed. Register to hear first when a home comes up for sale with a tenant already in, and the rent already coming in.” Ask for name, email, area, budget and type of home. Start building the list now.
7. Find landlords who own through a company. Companies House advanced search is free. Search nature of business 68209 (other letting of own or leased property) and 68100 (buying and selling own property) in your town, active companies only. A charge from a buy-to-let lender on the record tells you it really is a landlord. Some will already have an agent; some may want to grow. Both are worth a conversation.
8. Write to them. A letter to the registered office, not a call. 500 letters printed and posted cost about £440 (88p each, Stannp, checked 12 Oct 2026). AI can write each one from the Companies House details and a print-and-post service sends them, so it runs in the background while you get on with the day job. One home kept or won pays for those letters 3.8 times over.

Put this on your website

This is step four, ready to use. Landlords put in their own rent and see the two routes side by side, with every figure sourced. Fill in your agency’s details and the preview takes on your name, colour and logo. Then copy the code and paste it into your website, or send it to whoever looks after your site.

It’s a single static file: no tracking, no cookies, nothing to sign up for, and it’s free. Your logo loads from your own website. A small “Calculator by Olliverr” link sits at the bottom.

Keep it legal

• Once a notice to sell is served, the clock runs. That includes an informal letter or email asking the tenant to leave because of a sale, and it keeps running even if the landlord changes their mind. From the day the notice is served until 12 months after the notice period runs out, the home can’t be let, or marketed for letting, by the landlord or by you. Breaching it is a criminal offence, and the council can fine you up to £40,000 instead of prosecuting. Selling with the tenant in uses no possession ground, so none of that starts.
• Tell the tenant who their new landlord is. The buyer must write to them with the sale and their name and address, by the next rent day or within two months if that’s later. Until the buyer or the seller has told the tenant in writing, the seller stays liable to them as well.
• Say what’s in the listing. Sold with a tenant in place, the tenancy start, the current rent and when it was last reviewed, and the deposit and its scheme.
• Buyer sign-ups need their own tick. A separate, unticked box for news about tenanted homes, not a condition of registering, and an easy way to stop.
• Letters to companies, not people. Write to the company at its registered office. If you use a director’s name, tell them where you got their details and how to opt out (UK GDPR).

Most agencies look and sound the same. This is something that sets you apart: tenants stay put, and landlords are paid to the day it sells. Take a share of your landlords and ask them the question. Even if you do nothing more with it, you’ll know what the future looks like for them, and for your business.

How many did you lose last year?

From Easier To Run, lesson six.