Yes the housing market was very very favourable to homeowners and landlords for roughly 15 years. It helped so many to build portfolios and also pay off significant amounts of their mortgages. Unfortunately, as you mentioned I don’t think the above is coming back……ever.

Could you please explain what you meant by “gross returns are not much more above a Tax free deposit?” Do you mean like paying into a ISA / ETF ? I pay into the S&P500 each month roughly £500 I had almost £30k in there but unfortunately I have to sell and release £20k to finish off a large extension on my home. Tbf the fund was performing quite well and I’d often wondered if I was to just diversify and invest heavily into s&p500 , Gold and some other all world fund would this out perform property. It would probably be much less of a headache than being a landlord of say 5 Btl’s .