It’s no secret that many parts of the UK have seen asking rents rise dramatically over the years with a huge portion of the country’s population now relying on the private rented sector (PRS) to live, but which areas have seen the biggest growth in rents?
The private rented sector has become the backbone of the property market in recent years – Average earnings are not growing in line with the average cost of living, making it increasingly difficult for people to take their first step onto the property ladder and leaving them no option but to rent their homes. Naturally, this has caused rents to rise across the UK, however, some areas have seen more growth than others.
Analysis from Ideal Flatmate looked into how much rent has increased throughout the UK in the last five years. They looked at rental growth on both a regional level and by individual cities.
They found that the cities with the strongest rental growth were York, Manchester and Ipswich. York led the way, with a 38.1% growth in average rents. Between 2014 and 2019, the average rent in York increased from £749 per calendar month (pcm) to £1034 pcm. This was closely followed by Manchester at 37.8% and Ipswich with an increase of 37.7%. Other areas that performed well were South Gloucestershire (37%) and a selection of London boroughs including Barking and Dagenham (33.2%), Epping Forest (31.3%) and Newham (31.2%). Dartford in Kent also performed well with average rents rising by 32.4%.
The majority of cities saw a considerable growth in rents, however, there were some that saw their rents decrease. Aberdeen and Moray saw the biggest drop in rents, plunging by 21.7% in both cities. This was closely followed by Leeds, where rents dropped by 18.1%.
On a regional level, the strongest performers were the East of England (22.4%), East Midlands (14.9%) and Greater London (12.9%). It was generally a level playing field in the rest of the country, with the rest of the regions seeing an increase of around 12% to 13%.
Tom Gatzen, co-founder of ideal flatmate, said: ‘While initial rental affordability may be based on the cost of renting in a given area, many renters are aware of this cost and make a choice to live there.
‘However, the real squeeze in rental affordability is the continued increase in rents in many parts of the UK on an annual basis.
‘While an increase of £250 over five years might not sound significant, for those renting in York and already struggling with the cost, it’s enough to price them out of the sector altogether.’
This is just another example of why buy-to-let in the UK is so lucrative at the moment. As the demand for rental accommodation grows, it will put more pressure on the current supply which has a lot of potential for rent to grow even further.
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