The latest survey of members of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) shows that the return on residential property investment has stayed static at 4.9 percent for houses and 5.1 percent for flats. The proportion of ARLA agents saying that there are more properties than tenants has fallen from a high of 66 percent three years ago to just 45 percent for this quarter, but is still significant, indicating that it is still a tenants' market - hence the static rental yields.