By Tony Booth

The media are so hyped up and so confused about UK BTL, they seem to print headlines that largely depend on the weather that particular day.

So, who can we trust to give us the real facts?

Well, the people that first devised the buy-to-let (BTL) concept in 1996, the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), have just released a six-year analysis of BTL from 2001 to the present day with data supplied by people at the grass roots.

The statistics gathered from 500 letting agents and 250 investment landlords make interesting reading.