January Round-up!

Your snapshot of the lettings and property market for all of January, focussed on London and the rest of the UK!

  • Research from Paragon Bank has found that percentage of middle-aged renters in increasing. Households with a main tenant who is between the ages of 45 – 46 has risen by 70% in 10 years due to more tenants struggling to save for a deposit.
  • Further research by Paragon Bank sheds light on the issues in supply and demand, with small-scale landlords more likely to be exiting the market than larger portfolio ones and most buy-to-let mortgages being driven by remortgage activity.
  • Rental platform Ocasa reports that 17% of rental homes are Let Agreed within 2 weeks of being listed, with this figure increasing to 20% in London.
  • Goodlords latest rental index shows rents decreasing over the past month with voids increasing, however rents are still up 11% compared to 2021. Average void periods have increased by 2 days from 18 to 20 from October to November.
  • The rental market remains steady, Goodlord’s latest Rental Index shows void periods remaining the same and tenant demand continues to rise due to the lack of stock.  However, Goodlord did monitor a small decrease in the average cost of rent in December of 1.47% across the UK.
  • Research by Aldermore bank reveals two thirds of the Landlords surveyed have plans to raise rents in 2023 due to inflation, the cost-of-living crisis and house market volatility. However, under half of Landlords are considering downsizing if market conditions continue. 
  • Aldermore’s research is supported by a poll carried out by the UK Association of Letting Agents (UKALA), polling more than 1,100 Letting Agents revealed that 79% see rents rising in 2023, with over half of those expecting rents up to and over 10%,
  • Data from the latest Census suggest that the 20.3% of England and Wales’ population lives in privately rented homes as home ownership drops by 1.8%.
  • Knight Frank reports prospective tenants in prime central London increasing 26.7% over five years and rental values ending higher year on year, with 2022 being 17.8%. Rents have increased 21.1% above where they were in March 2020.
  • A survey from Confused.com found tenants are 18% more likely to complain about noise from their neighbours than homeowners. The reason for this is suggested to be that 64% of homeowners consider themselves to be friendly with their neighbours compared to 46% of tenants.
  • Research by Ocasa regarding rental adverts found Edinburgh, London and Glasgow to be the regions in the UK with the highest changes of finding new property with 21% of the stock available being added to the market in the last 14 days.
  • Landlords could be set to quit the market suggests research from Goodlord, 58% of agents surveyed believe new regulations and rising interest rates will cause Landlords to leave.
  • The latest snapshot study by RICS suggests Tenant demand has starting to slow, with last months figures being the lowest since February 2021.
  • September was the peak month of tenant demand in 2022 according to data by Propertymark who reported 147 new prospective tenants per member branch.
  • Research by TwentyCi shows available rental properties on the market have dropped 8% annually and 25% since 2019 on average across the UK. Their data shows that stock has been falling since March 2021. In contrast to this, rents rose 8.5% annually and 22% since 2019.
  • The quarterly Rent Index reveals that rent in London and Scotland  the surpassed the Consumer Price Index by 2.39% in London.
  • Data from Rightmove shows that average rents in London have risen to a new record of £2,480 pcm with Inner London surpassing £3,000 for the first time ever. Rightmove also reports that available stock is increasing (up 5.8% this quarter) and tenant competition declining (6% annually).