City suburbs, commuter towns and coastal locations record biggest jumps in rent
City suburbs, commuter towns and coastal location have recorded the biggest rises in rent for tenants last year.
Property portal Rightmove said that towns such as Rochdale, Folkestone and Farnham have seen asking rents jump by more than 25 per cent.
Their survey showed that as Covid restrictions started to ease, there was a greater demand from people looking to live in the city.
Asking rents have gone up by 6.8 per cent in Nottingham city centre compared with a year ago, and by 3.8 per cent in Liverpool. In contrast to this, rents in London and Edinburgh were still lower than they were last year, down by 6.8 per cent and 4 per cent.
A change in tenant habits
Tenants mirrored homebuyers in regard to the type of property they demanded. Both have been looking for indoor and outdoor space, with room to work from home and a garden to enjoy during lockdown.
This has led to higher demand in more rural or coastal areas, where there were fewer homes available to rent. Rent in these areas has been increased as a result.
While demand has been lower, some tenants have taken the opportunity to move to city centres which may have been unaffordable to them previously.
City Centre Comeback
Rightmove’s quarterly survey of rental prices found that 8 out of 10 of the biggest city centres were now seeing higher rents than in June last year.
National rents outside London had risen to an average of more than £1000 per month for the first time.
Asking rents were 2.6 per cent higher in April to June compared with the first three months of the year, and 6.2 per cent higher than this time last year.
Tenants were also buying properties faster as letting agents now take up to 21 days to find a tenant a home.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data had said: “We are seeing signs of the city centre comeback. As businesses settle into a more structured balance between home and office time, we expect this to continue for the rest of the year.”