Yup, it's the only leveraged investment some of these BTL people are perhaps really aware of and it's mostly gone up or sideways for the last few years so they're all genius investors now... of course if they're leveraged too much and it goes the other way then unlucky! Time to sell.
Others simply will, as you've pointed out, because the returns become a bit poor. I mean historically they've done rather nicely out of it, some risk of bad tenants and missing rent/having to pay for evictions but overall slapping down a low 5 figure sum on a deposit and then getting a six-figure asset out of it in a decade or two + another six-figure capital gain per property is quite sweet... util the market tanks and it isn't.
People who want a house of course.
I mean I've got an apartment in London with lots of equity but I quite fancy a house outside of London at some point, I could buy a modest detached or semi-detached family home in various locations with my current equity or I could perhaps buy a large house with a mortgage.
If London prices drop more than non-London prices then I lose a bit, if London prices don't drop as steeply as non-London prices then I could do nicely... if both drop about the same then whatever...
It doesn't really matter if my apartment drops a bit as I'm planning to use it to buy another property in the future and that property will likely drop a little bit too... in fact, if that property is otherwise a bit more expensive than my apartment then it's probably good for me overall if property drops a bit as the same % fall means the more expensive property I might like to buy in future will drop even more in terms of price.
So if some landlord or owner of a larger property perhaps bought during the inflated covid non-London I want a garden price increase has over extended themself then at some price levels it might drop to you could find someone like me happy to take it off their hands.
