Rents at another high after 15 consecutive quarters of broken records

Rents have again reached a new record high with monthly bills outside London averaging £1,278, according to property website Rightmove.

Average advertised rents outside the capital hit the latest high after breaking records for 15 consecutive three-month periods, the Rightmove data for the quarter from July to September showed.

It means advertised monthly rents are 10% higher than a year ago.

Average London rents have also risen to a record of £2,627 a month, up 12% on a year earlier.

It far outpaces the overall consumer price index measure of inflation, which stood at 6.7% in the year up to August. At the same time typical wages grew 7.8%.

Each advertised rental property is receiving an average of 25 enquiries, according to Rightmove’s rental trends tracker. It’s more than triple the eight enquiries properties were getting during the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.

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The rise can be attributed to the continued mismatch of supply and demand with the number of prospective tenants surpassing the number of available properties.

Compared to pre-pandemic times (2019) the number of tenants in the market has grown 41% while available properties dropped 35%, Rightmove said.

But there have been improvements, with the biggest yearly jump in rental properties coming to market since November 2022 – a 7% increase on this time last year, Rightmove said.

“Record rents and far more tenants looking to move than there are homes available means it will still feel very difficult for many tenants navigating the market,” said Rightmove’s director of property science, Tim Bannister.

“While it is likely that there is some way to go before this filters through to rental prices, if the improving trend between supply and demand continues, we could start to see the pace of yearly rent rises slow more significantly than it has been.”

Rightmove is a platform for selling and renting properties. As part of the rental trends tracker, rental property enquiries by phone and email are collated as are queues for viewings.