Savills says some 120,000 buy to let mortgages have been redeemed since the launch of the additional homes stamp duty surcharge over three years ago – suggesting most of these landlords have quit the sector.

The assertion, based on Savills’ analysis of mortgage data from trade organisation UK Finance, has done little to dent the dominance of buy to let as the main provider of private rental accommodation, however.

The agency says that Build To Rent still provides less than one per cent of the private rented accommodation in the UK.

However, Savills forecasts that BTR will eventually provide no less than a third of the country’s private rental market following huge growth over the coming decade. 

It predicts that 1.74m households out of 5.2m in the sector will be BTR – up from only 30,000 now. 

BTR will also rise in value from £9.6 billion today to £543 billion in a decade’s time – equivalent to a third of the total £1.5 trillion potential value of the whole private rental sector.