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News: Warning of rocketing rents amid a stark housing shortage

Fri, 13 Dec 19

With more landlords selling properties than buying them, at a time when there is a growing demand for rental properties, the private rental sector is facing a major crisis. 

According to research by property website Home.co.uk, demand continues to outstrip supply in the rental sector as the volume of new available rental property drops across the UK, having fallen 13% year-on-year. 

The rental market in London has been worst hit by this alarming trend towards scarcity, with the supply of new properties in the PRS plummeting by a staggering 22% year-on-year, fuelling significant growth in rents across many boroughs in the capital. 

A total of ten boroughs are now indicating annualised rent hikes of more than 10%, which is bad news for renters. 

 

 

Top of the list is Wandsworth where tenants need to fork out almost 20% more per month than a year ago. 

While demand for the few available rental properties is pushing up rents across most of Greater London, the study found that these rent increases have now spread out into the South East, rising by 6.2%, and the expectation is that this trend will continue into 2020.

Moreover, rents across the UK are up even more overall, rising 7.6% year-on-year, but this figure has been inflated disproportionally by the Greater London mix-adjusted average of 10.9% and those of the North West and Yorkshire, where rents are up 9.6% and 11% respectively.

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