Record tenant demand and properties being let out quicker than ever before has led to the average asking rent of a home outside London surpassing £1,000 per calendar month for the first time.
Rightmove’s Quarterly Rental Trends Tracker, based on over 470,000 properties, reveals that the number of prospective tenants contacting agents about properties for rent is currently 10% higher than in July 2020 across Great Britain, despite last year benefitting from pent-up tenant demand when the rental market re-opened in mid-May in England.
The average asking rent is now higher than this time last year in every region except London, although the capital is starting to see an improvement. London rents grew by 1.5% in Q2 compared to Q1, marking the first increase since Q1 last year before the pandemic started. They are now down by 3.1% annually, with the quarterly increase being driven by the outer London zones.
At the start of this year Rightmove reported double digit annual declines in some of the biggest city centres across Britain, and a flood of rental properties entering the market as many tenants chose to move out of cities. There are now signs that tenants are starting to return, helping to stabilise or increase rents.
Read the full report, commissioned by Rightmove by clicking here.
