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Even if you don't make a surplus amount, isn't the profit you make, the amount your mortgage value decreases each month?
I assume very few if any people are having to supplement the mortgage payments they need to make as the rent they charge doesn't cover it...?
Soul-
Most landlords don't pay off their mortgages. That was certainly the case when finance was an allowable expense.
The real problem is that if you put down £100k as deposit and make no yield on it, and get zero capital appreciation, you are going to look stupid compared to someone who just slung it in Nutmeg and made 5% average PY. Or got lucky with Crypto etc.
The 'super winners' from the rental market at the moment are those who exercised right to buy in like 1995 on a three bed flat in W2 for £50k and now rent it out £2,800 per month and have no mortgage and basically don't need to work because they live in Welwyn or something in a house that cost them equally peanuts in 2002.
Howard
If you pay asking for, say, a two bed in E3 and rent it out to a pair of professionals at market rates you'll basically make zero profit. Yields are poor, despite ridiculous rental prices.