Earlier this week, Countrywide said it anticipated more properties being listed for letting than listed for sale for the first time next year.

Neal Hudson, associate director of residential research at Savills, said that it is already the case that, irrespective of listings, there are more letting transactions than sales – and that it has been so since the credit crunch.

He has based his data on HMRC transactions and on English Housing Survey data, which shows the number of moves within and into the private rented sector.

Hudson says assuming that tenants have an average stay of three years, then approximately 33% of private rental properties are re-let every year.

With the number of private rental homes in England estimated at about 4.7m, that would be about 1.6m moves a year.

Hudson told EYE: “Turnover is higher in the private rented sector than in the sales market, despite it being much smaller.”