“My YouTube audience is aged mainly 25 to 44, so essentially millennials,” he says. “There’s been a big upswing in terms of the information available about property investing. When I got into it, there was no content around it on social media; you had to go and read a book. Now there are YouTube and TikTok channels, and people are much more aware.

“People my age naturally assume landlords are older. But when you see other young people doing this on social media, it gives you this sense that if they can do it, I can do it.”

Buy-to-let has become squeezed in recent years. Higher borrowing rates, the removal of mortgage interest relief for individual landlords, increasing regulation, including the Renters’ Rights Act, and income tax on rental profits have caused some landlords to flee the market, leading to a fall in new entrants.

But Khan believes that this is not enough to put young people off. By buying properties through limited company structures, therefore allowing them to continue to claim tax relief on mortgage interest, and prioritising long-term capital gains over short-term income, some investors are finding that the model remains sustainable.

While seasoned landlords who have been in the game for decades have gradually watched it become much less lucrative, and are therefore disillusioned with it as a source of income, young people still see it as an excellent opportunity to acquire a portfolio while turning a profit, even if it was once easier to do so.

“A lot of older people are getting out of property because when they got started they would’ve got much better returns… If this is all you know, it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it’s still pretty fruitful,” adds Khan.

‘Young people are massively disillusioned with their pensions’

One key reason for a rise in the numbers of young people investing in property is their lack of faith in the economic future of this country and the power of their pension pots, says Lewis Crompton, a 34-year-old start-up founder who owns eight rental properties across the North East and the Midlands.

“We’re massively disillusioned with what our pension is going to be, with the way the economy is going, and we think that there’s nothing safer than bricks and mortar,” he says.

Kader adds that due to the Government fiddling with taxation on pensions – by bringing them into the scope of inheritance tax during last year’s Budget, for example – she and her peers do not trust that they will not be taxed further in the future, or that they will be guaranteed to maintain their tax-free lump sum.

“Me and my friends don’t pay into our pensions, we put it into property instead; that’s our pension. We don’t fully trust the government in terms of our pension security.”

Crompton, who started buying rental properties when he was 26, believes that young landlords are unfairly maligned for trying to protect their futures.

“Banks are some of the biggest landlords in the UK, but nobody attacks them. Instead, they attack Bob and Mary who bought a couple of buy-to-lets to look after them in their retirement because they don’t trust that their pension is going to be able to afford them the lifestyle they’ve worked hard to maintain.”

‘Property is still seen as one of the safest asset classes there is’

The age-old view that property tends to perform remarkably well over a long enough time frame is also driving young people to choose it over alternative investments, adds Kader.

“Each time we’ve seen a financial crash during our short lifetimes, the property market has dipped and then risen exponentially, so we’re just following that trend.”

“As an investment class, property is still seen as one of the safest there is,” adds Khan. “What does our generation have? The stock market, property and crypto – and a lot of people don’t want to get into crypto because of the volatility.”

Ahmed adds that the concept of owning a flat and renting it out is much more straightforward than the stock market. “The average retail investor can get into property because they understand it – you buy a house, you can rent it out and make money from it. The average person might find it harder to understand what an ETF is, or which stocks to buy.”

Beveridge, of Hamptons, adds: “It’s partly about the ability to use debt as a lever, which is what BTL allows you to do, and gives it an advantage over other asset classes. It’s quite hard to borrow money to invest in stocks and shares. But if you put £50,000 on a home worth £200,000, the rental income and capital growth is based on that price – so you’re owning more money relative to what you put down.”

But young people searching for exponential growth within property should temper their expectations, warns Beveridge.

“It’s very easy to look back and see how much house price growth our parents and grandparents saw, but that’s not a guarantee of future performance. It’s hard to predict the future, but the consensus is that we’re not as likely to see house prices rise as much in the future as they have in the past, which alters the landscape for investment a bit.

“People can also forget to factor in costs associated with buying buy-to-lets, such as service charges with leasehold properties – what can look like a pretty good gross yield can turn into a less good net yield.”

(*Millennials, also known as Generation Y are the generation typically being defined as people born from 1981 to 1996).

Matthew Dean

26th January 2026.