What are the biggest challenges rental agents face in 2025 – and what did they vote in as the industry’s top priority for the new year?
Early results from the PayProp State of the Rental Industry Survey, conducted at the end of last year, show that one long-standing concern is still keeping agents up at night: finding quality tenants.
50.6% of survey respondents put this in their top 3 challenges for 2025, meaning it has now been the biggest concern for the industry in three out of the last four years. Portfolio growth followed just behind, selected by 48.0% of respondents. Portfolio growth has also been in the top 2 every year since 2022.
Not everything was the same as last year, though. Profitability made it into the top 3 for the first time ever, picked by 30.7% of respondents. Profitability has been a persistent problem for rental agents over the last couple of years. Although rental growth has been rising since late 2021, high inflation meant that rents didn’t go up in real terms until Q2 2024.
While the challenges agents identify have changed, their top priority is the same as it has been every year since we first asked in 2021: signing more landlords. 60.5% of respondents put this in first place, up from 51.5% the previous year.
Managing 2025’s risks
While agents identify several potential challenges they might face this year, the data also suggests that optimism about the rental market is on the rise. The shares of respondents concerned about finding quality tenants, portfolio growth, and tenant arrears all fell compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, the fastest growing concern was competition from other agencies – picked by 20.1% of respondents, compared to 10.9% the previous year. And 7.2% of respondents said that they didn’t have any concerns for the year ahead, compared to just 3.0% a year earlier.
Agents who are worried about finding quality tenants can take advantage of industry-leading tools to assess applicants and manage risk. PayProp’s Tenant Assessment Report combines traditional credit scoring with the applicant’s rental payment history (where available) to give a clearer picture of how likely they are to pay their rent.
And the overall picture of tenant risk is getting better too. The Q3 2024 PayProp Rental Index found that the share of tenants in arrears had fallen to a near-record low of 17.4%. Tenants’ incomes have also risen faster than their rent or debt repayments, giving them more financial breathing room. If these trends continue, it will be a big relief for rental agents.
