Rents in Britain set to increase

Rents across most parts of Britain are poised to rise due to growing demand for rental property by prospective tenants.

According to figures from the February 2020 RICS UK Residential Market Survey, demand for property available to rent in the UK has been rising in recent months, but the number of homes on the private rental market remains at an all time low.

The lack of available housing is driving the cost of renting homes up, surveyors have reported. Experts predict, the trend of increasing demand for rental homes set against falling supply will mean the cost of rent will continue to increase, potentially by 2% per annum.

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICs) believe that if this trend continues, by 2025, the cost of renting property in the UK will have risen by 3% a year.

A separate study reveals a similar upward trend of the cost of renting. The Homelet Rental Index for March 2020 showed that the average rental price for a new tenancy in Britain was £959 per calendar month, a 1.8% increase on the same time last year.

In London, by March 2020, the cost of rent had increased by 3.7% compared to March 2019. The average monthly rental in London now stands at £1,673 per calendar month.

Excluding the capital, the average rental in the UK for March 2020 is £793. The HomeLet Rental Index shows that the growth recorded in rents in Britain in March 2020 at a rate of 1.8% appear to be higher than the rate of inflation, which, according to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) in February 2020, stood at 1.7%.

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