Private sector rents 'rise to new high of £816 a month'

Updated
Private sector rents 'rise to new high of £816 a month'
Private sector rents 'rise to new high of £816 a month'



Private sector rents jumped to a new record high of £816 a month across England and Wales in September, according to a lettings index.

Estate agents Your Move and Reeds Rains, which compiled the report, said the hike means that tenants need to find around £48 a month more to pay their rent than they did a year ago.

Rents also hit regional records in London, the South East, the South West, and the East and West Midlands in September.

When compared with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of inflation since the start of 2010, rents across the country have increased by more than 10% in real terms over this period, the report said.

Adrian Gill, director of Your Move and Reeds Rains, said: "Rents are rising strongly in real terms due to the recent acceleration in wages, and the much deeper and longer-term shortage of available properties across the UK...

"Meanwhile, as the price of everyday essentials plateaus and even falls, rents are no longer following the same broad trends. The cost of a place to live has now uncoupled from the cost of living."

The findings follows figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week, which showed that house prices have also reached a new record high across the UK, standing at £284,000 on average in August.

Mr Gill said that rents tend to be more likely to hit record peaks around this time of year.

He continued: "We are in the middle of the busiest time of year in the rental market. September and October are especially important given the student rental market in the autumn and the echoes of the academic year as those in their 20s start new jobs."

The Your Move/Reeds Rains report found that rents in London are rising most rapidly, leaping by 11.6% annually to a new record high of £1,301 on average per month.

Rents in the East Midlands are also at a record of around £603 per month, while in the West Midlands rents are also at a new peak of £592 per month.

Meanwhile rents in the South West of England stand at a fresh high of £691 per month and rents in the South East now average a record high of £831 per month.

In Wales, average rents are 5.4% lower than a year ago, at £536 per month.

Tenant arrears now represent 8.6% of all rent due, as of September, the report said. This is an improvement after a set back in August took the figure to 9.9%, although it is a deterioration compared with a year ago when 7.2% of rent due was in arrears.

The report is based on rents achieved on around 20,000 properties across England and Wales.



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