Growth in asking rents slows since last quarter but has soared in past ten years – Rightmove

Rightmove has shed light on just how much asking rents have changed in the past decade.

Its latest Rental Tracker for the first quarter of 2018 shows that listed rents on the portal for two-bed properties have increased 16% to £678 in the past decade in all areas outside of London and 25% in the capital to £1,648 a month.

The biggest boost has been in Hackney, where asking rents are up 63% in the past decade to £1,755 – a 63% increase from £1,080 between the first quarter of 2008 and the first three months of 2018.

Outside London, Dartford has seen the biggest jump, with asking rents up 41% to £1,063 over the past decade.

Meanwhile, the report shows that asking rents in the first three months of the year were down 0.2% on the previous quarter but up on a yearly basis by 0.9% to £775 a month in all parts of the UK excluding London.

London saw asking rents slide 0.1% annually and increase 0.2% on a quarterly basis to £1,935 a month in the first three months of the year.

The East Midlands has experienced the biggest growth, with rents on listings increasing 2.6% annually to £623 per month.

As well as London, the south-east has also seen a fall in listed rents compared with last year, down 0.9% annually to £1,038 per month.

Miles Shipside, housing market analyst for Rightmove, said: “Although the growth in asking rents has slowed over the past few years, people new to the rental market or those looking for a bigger property could find that they need to look further out than their initial wish-list of places, especially in the bigger cities around the country.

“A look at the first few months of this year shows the usual seasonal trend of asking rents falling slightly compared to the last quarter of last year, but we’re likely see a rise again next quarter.”

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