There are an average 13 renters battling it out for every property available to let — but are landlords profiting or selling up?
It feels genuinely hopeless and it’s making me ill,” says Lottie, who privately rents a two-bedroom property in outer London. Like thousands of private tenants right now, her biggest worry is her rental agreement coming up for renewal.
Looking at rental listings for similar properties in her area, she anticipates a rent rise of between 20 and 40 per cent. So dire is the situation that she didn’t want to give her full name because she fears her landlord will read this and hike her rent by that much.
If she can’t afford it, she will have to re-enter a scorching hot rental market. Rents have risen so quickly, the amount she is paying will only secure her and her partner a room in a houseshare. “I’ve had to take time off work because I worry about it all so much,” says Lottie, who is in her early forties. “I keep wondering, who is it for? What happens when we get priced out [of London]? What happens when people who do jobs that are lower paid but more vital get priced out?”……
….Some landlords, like Carol Peett, 65, think now is an “ideal time to buy” a rental property as a cash buyer. Peett, who is the founder of buying agency West Wales Property Finders, http://www.westwalespropertyfinders.co.uk recently bought a three-bedroom house in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, and it was let in one day for £1,000 a month. She says: “With more and more people selling, demand for good rentals will soar and competition for each house will be stronger so we will be able to select the best tenants at a competitive rate.”
To stand out from the competition, more tenants are having to offer above asking rent and pay months of payments in advance. More than one in ten (11.1 per cent) rental properties in Britain were let with three or more months’ rent paid upfront, up from 7.4 per cent in 2012, Hamptons research shows. In London, this is the case for almost one in four properties (22 per cent). Back in 2015, 20 per cent of rentals had a price reduction before they were let, but now only 13 per cent do…..
The Times – Friday, 4th August 2023 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-s-really-going-on-inside-britain-s-broken-rental-market-qstj000bm
