More renters left London over the past year than any other time since 2007, says lettings network

Record numbers of rental sector tenants have left London over the past year, according to projections from a major lettings network.

Over the last 12 months nearly 65,000 tenants are estimated to have left London, Countrywide said - the highest number doing this since its records started in 2007.

The figure is an estimate for the sector as a whole, based on the movements of Countrywide's tenants.

More than three-quarters (78%) left to rent another home outside the capital with the remaining 22% leaving to buy a home.

Countrywide said this is a major shift compared with a decade ago, when 51% of tenants moving out of the capital did so to buy a home.

The average monthly rent in September in London was £1,712, according to Countrywide's figures.

The average tenant leaving the capital moves 89 miles away, with growing numbers going to the Midlands and Northern England, according to Countrywide.

This year, 48% of tenants leaving London to rent somewhere else headed North, compared with 31% in 2007, the lettings network said.

But towns nearby the capital are also popular - with Slough being a particular hotspot for those moving out of London, Countrywide said.

Johnny Morris, research director at Countrywide, said: "For people in their 30s leaving London is something of a rite of passage.

"But as the number of those renting has grown the move out of London is increasingly likely to be in the rental market.

"A decade ago most tenants moving out of the capital did so to buy. But since 2007 leaving London to carry on renting somewhere else has become more typical."

Countrywide's index is based on 90,000 homes it lets and manages each year.

Here are the places where homes are most likely to be let to a tenant moving from London, according to Countrywide:

1. Slough
2. Thurrock
3. Broxbourne
4. St Albans
5. Canterbury
6. Elmbridge
7. Oxford
8. Basildon
9. South Oxfordshire
10. Luton