According to a recent poll of almost 800 residential property investors, one in five landlords are too embarrassed to admit it.

The findings show that on average 21% of landlords have been too embarrassed to admit it before. Across the UK, more landlords in the East of England and the East Midlands said they were embarrassed to admit it compared to any other region (29% and 28% respectively).

At the other end of the scale, the English regions with the fewest embarrassed landlords were the South East and Yorkshire and Humber (18%). Just 13% of landlords in Scotland said they had been too embarrassed to admit it before – the lowest across the UK (see full regional breakdown below).  

Richard Blanco, who lets property in London and the East Midlands, says he hasn’t always been truthful when it comes to admitting he’s a landlord: “Before becoming a landlord I thought long and hard about it because I had always disliked landlords as a student due to a bad experience I had over my deposit. These days I’m more upfront about it, but I tell people I work in property instead, because I still assume people won’t like me if tell them what I do.

I also say that I work for the National Landlords Association (NLA) and that we campaign to improve the private rented sector, which tends to go down a bit better”.

The findings indicate that approximately 400,000 of the UK’s 2 million landlords avoid telling people what they do. The NLA, which is the largest representative body for landlords in the UK, says that despite the bad press, the majority of tenants are satisfied with their current landlord and tenancy.

Richard Lambert, Chief Executive Officer at the NLA, said: “The number of people looking to invest in property is rising all the time yet the stigma attached to being a landlord never seems to diminish. It’s the minority of rogues and criminal landlords that make the headlines, and this has a negative impact on everyone else. The majority of landlords are hardworking individuals who put their own money into providing homes for others, and they should not be ashamed to say so”.