UK Rents Hit an All-Time High

OpenRent can report that, for the first time ever, UK average rents have gone up by almost 10% in a year.

Tenant demand is skyrocketing, and supply of rental properties is short. In this month’s newsletter, we’re going to tell you why.

Across the whole country, rent has reached a record rate over the past year. 

Compared to April last year, at OpenRent, we have seen the average rental amount outside of London increase by 9.6%, with rental prices in the capital increasing by 14.3% in the same period.

In some areas – like Swansea (SA1) – average rents have increased as much as 37.4% in a year! 

The northern hotspot of Manchester (M1) has also seen a rental increase of 28.6%, and in the South-West, Bristol (BS1) similarly saw a hike in prices of 13.9%. 

But why?

A definite factor is skyrocketing tenant demand. It appears lots of people want to move back to cities after the COVID exodus. This may be especially the case for London, where the demand has risen by 81% compared to the 2019 rental market.

Some agents have also reported a simultaneous dip in the supply of rental properties on the market. There could be a few different reasons for this – including longer leases, high competition in the sales market, and a 5 year trend from 2016 – 2021 of landlords selling more properties than they bought.

For those of you who would like to contribute to the debate on rising rental prices, you can have your say below, but all of these potential causes have contributed to landlords achieving record rental prices across the UK!

---