OSB Group (LON:OSB) used its first “Investor Spotlight” event to outline why it believes the U.K. private rented sector (PRS) and professional buy-to-let (BTL) lending remain structurally attractive, and to detail how its multi-year technology transformation is intended to strengthen competitiveness in its largest portfolio segment.
Buy-to-let franchise positioned around professional landlords
Chief Executive Andy described the U.K. PRS as “large and structurally embedded” rather than a short-term opportunity, citing robust tenant demand alongside constrained housing supply. He said the market is becoming more professionalized, which the group views as aligned with its specialist underwriting capabilities.
OSB said it is the U.K.’s largest specialist buy-to-let lender, with a 24% share of the specialist segment that it forecast to expand to £96 billion by 2029. Management also said its buy-to-let book delivered a 6% CAGR since 2019, despite a £1.2 billion deconsolidation transaction completed at the end of 2024. As of December 2025, OSB’s buy-to-let book stood at £17.7 billion and represented 68% of the total loan book. The group reiterated a plan for buy-to-let to reduce over time to around 60% as it expands higher-yielding segments and specialist residential lending.
Market drivers: housing shortage, demand for flexibility, and wealth transfer
Jon Hall, Managing Director of Mortgages and Savings, argued that structural factors support long-term rental demand. He cited a housing shortage of 4.3 million homes and noted that 4.9 million properties are rented privately in the U.K., representing 19% of homes. He contrasted current homebuilding of about 200,000 per year with a government target of 300,000 and a stated need of 400,000–500,000 new homes per year, describing the shortfall as set to grow.
Hall also pushed back on the narrative that landlords are broadly exiting the sector, saying that “in reality” many sales are landlords selling to other landlords. He said only about 10% of homes listed for sale had previously been let, which he described as a long-term average.
On demand, OSB referenced its own research projecting tenant demand will increase by around 15% over the coming years. Hall said renting is a choice across generations, driven by flexibility, access to location, and affordability. He cited OSB research indicating 78% of tenants say they “feel at home,” 54% feel they live in an area they want to, and 61% of recent buyers say ownership restricted their area to live in and is less flexible than renting.
Management also highlighted what it called intergenerational wealth transfer, which Hall said will see around £3 billion of property wealth and 2 million properties move to a younger generation, supporting “the next generation of landlords.” In OSB’s research, he said millennials and Gen Z could comprise nearly 50% of the landlord market in the near and medium term, and that 70% of future landlords cited inheritance as a route into becoming a landlord.
Professionalization and complexity framed as a specialist lending opportunity
Speakers repeatedly emphasized that professional landlords increasingly operate through limited companies and multi-property portfolios. Andy said OSB has seen originations involving limited company structures rise from 40% in 2015 to 92% “last year,” and the share of new business from multi-property landlords increase from 60% to 92% over the same period.
Hall provided additional market color, saying approximately 75% of buy-to-let purchases were made via a limited company in 2025, up from around 50% in 2021, and that about 50% of buy-to-let properties are held in portfolios of more than four properties. He said the average size of a limited company portfolio is 12.8 properties, and that 21% of landlords hold at least one house in multiple occupation (HMO), rising to 35% for portfolios of four or more properties.
Hall also pointed to upcoming changes, including the Renters’ Rights Act coming into force in May, and said professional landlords are better positioned to adapt due to compliance capabilities, longer-term investment horizons, and a focus on tenant satisfaction. He also said professional landlords tend to upgrade properties for energy efficiency ahead of legislative changes, and can spread costs more effectively across portfolios.
Transformation program: platform rollout, faster decisions, and AI deployment
Group Chief Operating Officer Matthew Baillie said the transformation program began with foundations in year one, built out platform capabilities in year two (including a new savings offering), and launched buy-to-let processing on the new platform in year three alongside the “Rely” brand, which OSB said launched in November 2025 after a soft launch with brokers.
Baillie said all buy-to-let business is now processed through the new platform and cited early activity metrics including more than 4,500 registered brokers, 2,500 full mortgage applications, and more than 500 customer completions.
He described operational changes including a reduction in broker effort “by more than half,” a single registration across brands, and a shift toward data-led decisioning that he characterized as an “80/20” model where experts focus on the most complex cases. Baillie said agreement-in-principle decisions can be delivered in under 10 minutes supported by more than 14 data integrations, and that customers can receive an offer in as little as two hours. He also said OSB has seen a 30% reduction in the average days from application to offer.
Baillie said agility has improved, with time to reprice products and introduce new lending criteria reduced from weeks to hours. He said this capability had been demonstrated during “the past 2 weeks” of market volatility, where OSB could withdraw existing products and simultaneously launch new ones.
On AI, Baillie said OSB is applying AI to fraud prevention, income verification, and data validation, and using it internally for software development such as code creation and automated testing. He also said OSB partnered with Cambridge Spark and sent 50 senior leaders to the University of Cambridge for a six-month program on “leading in the age of data and AI.”
Q&A: repricing speed, margins in volatility, and funding costs
In Q&A, RBC’s Benjamin Toms asked about repricing capability. Hall said that roughly a year earlier it could take 48 hours or more to rebuild and reissue a product range, but the group can now pull a product and launch a new one “within hours.” He said this enabled OSB to reprice and maintain a market presence while other lenders withdrew, with capacity provided “at higher rates,” though he added the primary purpose was protection in volatile conditions. He also said OSB has similar capability on the funding side, helping it respond in volatile swap markets.
Asked about competitive positioning of the platform, management said the end-to-end replatforming approach differs from competitors that have invested in only parts of the process. Baillie said incremental improvements “compound” to a more seamless experience, including greater speed and decision certainty. Hall said OSB can now deliver app-to-decision and offers in hours, and cited broker feedback describing the new platform as a “game changer.”
On AI’s potential impact on underwriting roles and operating leverage, Andy said the platform should enable balance sheet growth without always adding headcount and that OSB has reduced headcount in some underwriting-related areas as experts focus less on manual processing. Baillie said the group is embedding agentic workflows where it is comfortable, including in underwriting-related areas, and expects to change the skills mix over time without increasing overall headcount.
Separately, Victoria (introduced in Q&A in relation to deposits) discussed deposit pricing conditions. She said February funding costs “tempered down a little bit,” while March dynamics were more volatile, and that the group was tactically trying to pull forward some volume from April. She said fixed-rate funding was “cheaper for now,” and that OSB had implemented maturity journeys for Kent Reliance customers, which she said helps the bank price faster and offer better product selection.
About OSB Group (LON:OSB)
OSB Group Plc, through its subsidiaries, operates as a specialist mortgage lending and retail savings company in the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands. It provides private rented sector related buy-to-let, commercial and semi-commercial mortgages, residential development finance, secured funding, bridging, and asset finance services. The company also provides buy-to-let and specialist residential mortgages, mortgage servicing, administration and analytical, mortgage originator and servicer, and retail savings products; and back office processing services.
