Average asking rents outside London rise 10% in a YEAR, Rightmove says

Average advertised rents outside London reached £1,278 per month between July and September, an increase of 10 per cent in a year or 3.8 per cent in the last three months alone.

According to Rightmove’s Rental Trends Tracker, this means the cost of renting a house has reached a new record for the fifteenth quarter in a row.

In some areas even longer hikes have been completed. In Luton, Bedfordshire, average asking rents have risen 23.6 per cent in the past year to £1,263, the data shows.

In London, average advertised rents rose to a record £2,627 per month during this period, an increase of 12.1 per cent from the same point a year ago.

The number of inquiries each rental property receives from potential tenants has more than tripled to 25, compared to eight at the same time in 2019.

In the North West of England, the average advertised monthly rental cost has risen by 12 per cent in the past year to an average of £1,105, according to Rightmove.

Meanwhile, in the North East of England, average monthly advertised rental costs have risen 9.8 per cent year-on-year to £856 per month.

Wales has the smallest annual increase in advertised monthly rental costs, up 5.9 percent to £1,032 per month.

The increase in applications is driven by the ‘ongoing imbalance’ between supply and demand, with 41 per cent more tenants wanting to move than in 2019 and the number of available properties falling by 35 per cent, according to the findings.

Ria Laitmer, lettings manager at Clarkes estate agents in Dorset, said: ‘The gap between high demand and a serious shortage of rental stock at the moment is simply insane.

‘We are receiving increasing numbers of inquiries for each property to rent from potential tenants, with queues of tenants arriving for open house viewings and the majority left disappointed as there are simply not enough properties on the market to meet demand.’

However, the total number of available rental properties has increased by 14 percent compared to last year, while the number of new homes coming onto the market is now 7 percent higher than this time last year.

Rightmove said this was the biggest annual increase in new rental properties since November 2022.

Tim Bannister, director of real estate at Rightmove, said: ‘Record rents and many more tenants looking to move than there are properties available means it will still be very difficult for many tenants to navigate the market.

‘However, there are signs that some of the pressure between supply and demand is beginning to ease, with the number of new rental properties coming onto the market now at the highest level since the end of last year.

‘While it is likely that there is still some way to go before this feeds through to rental prices, if the improving trend between supply and demand continues, we could see the pace of annual rent increases becoming significantly slower than before.

‘In the current market, tenants must do more to have the best chance of finding a rental home.’

The pressure on the rental market is increasing because buying a first home remains difficult to afford for many.

Mortgage rates are slowly falling but remain high, and many potential buyers are struggling to save enough for a down payment or earn enough to afford the expensive monthly payments.

Findings published this week show that a quarter of young homeowners with a new mortgage have chosen to pay it back over 35 years or more in a bid to make monthly payments more affordable.

According to Experian data, 25 percent of new homeowners aged 29 and under had opted for a minimum 35-year repayment term between January and March this year.

This is comparable to the historically typical level of around 10 percent, which Experian recorded in January 2020.