Rightmove reports:

Average asking rents outside of London hit another new record of £1,126 per calendar month (pcm), rising 3.5% from last quarter and by 11.8% compared to last year.
This increase in average asking rents means that rents outside of London are rising at the highest annual
rate Rightmove has ever recorded in 16 years of reporting. Rents have now risen by 19% (+£177) since the pandemic started two years ago.
By contrast, it took eight years pre-pandemic to reach the same level of growth, illustrating the rapid rise
in asking rents since the start of the pandemic. This quarter’s 3.5% jump is the second highest quarterly
rise in ten years.
Rents in the capital also continue to rise as London reaches a new record average asking rent of £2,257
pcm this quarter. Annual growth in asking rents in London is now at 15.8%, the fastest ever rate of any
region.
Rising rents continue to be driven by a shortage of available rental stock, with low volumes struggling to
meet high tenant demand over the past two years.
Although there is still a shortage of available homes to rent, there continues to be signs of this improving.
The number of new rental listings is up 8% since the start of the year. June saw the highest number of new rental listings coming to market of any month this year so far.
Despite these encouraging signs, available rental stock is still down 26% compared to last year’s levels,
while demand is up 6%, which means competition between tenants remains extremely fierce.
As high tenant demand continues to overtake last year’s exceptional levels, and available rental stock is
slow to recover, we now expect average asking rent growth to reach 8% by the end of the year, up from
5% predicted at the start of the year.
Affordability analysis from Rightmove shows that due to historically low interest rates, average mortgage payments on properties with two-bedrooms or fewer have risen by 13% in the last ten years, while equivalent rental payments on the same properties have risen by 40%.
Despite challenges such as navigating legislation changes and potential updates to EPC requirements and more landlords are planning to expand their portfolio than reduce it, a sign of confidence in the market.
A third (34%) of landlords recently surveyed said they plan to expand their portfolio during the next 12
months compared with 11% who plan to reduce the number of homes they rent out.
Rightmove’s Director of Property Science Tim Bannister said: “The story of the rental market continues to be one of high tenant demand but not enough available homes to meet that demand. Last year we saw
exceptional numbers of tenants looking to move and this year we have seen no let-up in this trend. Whilst stock levels are beginning to improve, with June seeing the highest number of new rental listings coming to market so far this year, the wide gap that has been created between supply and demand over the last two years will take time to narrow. Until then, this imbalance will continue to support asking rent growth. This has led to our revised forecast of a 8% rise in asking rents by the end of the year up from 5%.”

At Cousins Estate Agents we have witnessed these increases in real-time with even the lowest priced houses renting for £625/£650 pcm.

Its also important for Landlords to bear in mind that not keeping their stock at full rent could lead to the houses being devalued at time of sale as buyer investors will shy away from the difficulty of enforcing any rent increase to a historical tenants. 

For all further enquiries, including rent increase process please call our lettings team in cousins on 0161 464 6199.