Wales records eyewatering increase in rental costs over the last 12 months
Rental costs in Wales have risen by close to 14% in the last year, the biggest increase in the UK excluding London.
Property firm Rightmove’s first-quarter rental trends tracker found the average asking price per calendar month in Wales shot up 13.9% to £882 per month compared to 2021.
Data showing rental hotspots in the UK revealed that Swansea saw the largest annual increase in rental asking price of any region, jumping 19.7% from £653 per month to £782.
The average asking price per calendar month across the UK increased by 10.8% year-on-year to £1,088 outside London and 14.3% to £2,193 inside.
This marks the first time that rents outside of London rose by more than 10% annually, while the leap inside London was the largest of any region on record.
Mismatch
Rightmove said the sky-high rental costs are being driven by an ongoing mismatch in demand and supply, with tenant demand up by 6% and the number of available rental properties having fallen by 50% over the past year.
It said: “The result of this ongoing mismatch between tenant demand and the properties available to rent means that tenants looking for a new place to move to are being faced with the most competitive rental market that Rightmove has ever recorded.
“There are more than triple the amount of tenants enquiring as there are rental properties available, meaning a high likelihood of landlords being able to choose between multiple suitable tenants.”
But it said there were some signs that conditions might be easing, with a 5% increase in the number of rental properties coming on to the market last month when compared with January and a 16% rise between February and March.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data, said there were several factors behind the market challenges.
He said: “On the supply side, we’re hearing from agents and landlords that tenants are signing longer leases, which has prevented some of the stock that would normally come back on to the market from doing so.
“When it comes to demand, we’re still seeing the effects of the pandemic, whereby tenants are balancing what they need from a home and how close they need to live to work with where they can afford.”
The figures show that across the UK, outside of London, the North West of England posted the second highest increase, up 12.8% to £937 per month after Wales.
The South West saw rents jump 12.2% annually to £1,202 per month, while Scotland saw growth of 11.2% to £852.
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I wonder if a lot of buy-to-let for retirement pensioners are passing the cost of living increase straight to their tenants
This data is laughable. Take Powys. There were in 2020/21 some 8,624 social rentals and 10,979 private rentals and Powys is constantly building social homes.
Rightmove is currently advertising 27 Powys properties to rent and nearly all are flats. So the 14% rise in rent levels is based on a minuscule slice of the private part (56%) of the rental market which bothers to pay for advertising with an agency which has fewer properties at present than Zoopla (35 in Powys). It is judging an ocean from a glass of water.
Social rents in Powys went up by around 3%.
Within a 3-mile radius of Bangor 240 rentals on the Rightmove website. Only 26 are available for people who aren’t students or don’t want to house share. Rents for House share/student properties can be over £2000. Rents for a bog-standard 2 bedroom terrace up to £800 (£200 -£300 more than the monthly repayment would be on the mortgage). If you are a local looking for a property to rent then your chances are slim to none. The property market is free for all, especially in student areas. Cabals of powerful student landlords controlling rental prices are morally wrong, yet still,… Read more »
as a landlord i welcome this. i own hundreds of houses in wales and have put the rent up every year and i still get tenants. trouble is, too many tenants won’t pay. they complain that their wages aren’t enough to afford to rent. then don’t rent then, morons, duh. if you can’t afford the rent don’t stop paying it, that’s stealing from me. waa waa i’m starving waa waa i can’t afford to pay it. times are hard for all of us, do you know how much it costs to keep a fleet of sports cars in petrol these… Read more »
I know the feeling the price of Caviar, Kobe Beef and Lobsters has rocketed over the last few years. Tenants must learn that they have to keep their evil landlords in luxury.
Hahaha, you have ably demonstrated that you are very much part of the problem. As BigBlueDiesel has said below, the shortage of rental stock and the subsequent increase in rents is down to lefties like yourself, Shelter, Generation Rent, et al, all hitting the PRS as much as they could and lobbying for Draconian tax changes and new regulations. This all comes at a cost, every bit of it, so who do you think is going to end up paying it??? Many landlords have said enough is enough and have quit and even if new ones enter the sector they’ll… Read more »
Working from home allows Londoners to move to much nicer and larger property in Wales whilst keeping their London salaries.
Great for London, terrible for Wales.
But they spend the London salary in Wales, surely that is good for Wales?
Exactly what everyone wanted. The govt wanted landlords gone from the market and the idiotic and uninformed cheered when ludicrously high ‘Section 24’ taxes were inflicted to kill off the sector. Landlords have been saying that rents and homelessness would rocket as a result and they have. All this was cheered on by the left, the charities and the public so reap what you sow.
Yes. It was bad enough having to face the anti-landlord attack from Westminster and as you say Section 24 has been catastrophic for landlords. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales called it absurd, unjust and unsustainable. Paying tax on revenue and not allowing interest payments to count as an expense is ruinous. Now we have Cardiff Bay wading in with their clodhoppers and dreaming up other ways of attacking us. This, in addition to the demand that we get millions of old properties up to a C grade EPC by 2025. Completely impossible. Both Governments are run… Read more »