Rental supply is falling but coronavirus won’t hit lettings agents as badly as it has for sales, Zoopla claims.

Analysis of rental listings on its own portal found while there are 60% fewer properties coming to the market from lettings agents, the total available to rent has only fallen by 3% since March 1st. These figures could be seen to point to a falling off of demand as would-be tenants are unable to take tenancies.

Zoopla said this indicates that there has been no large-scale withdrawal.

It said there was also a surge in supply prior to lockdown as landlords moved from short to long-term lets.

Tenant demand fell by 57% between March 7th and March 30th, a more modest decline than the 70% fall in buyer demand, according to Zoopla.

But demand had risen by 30% since then as of April 14th.

The portal predicted that the rental market will recover faster than sales once lockdown eases as lettings agents can still secure agreements with delayed move-ins and are more likely to agree terms based on video viewings.

Zoopla said the rental market has more home moves a year (1.2m) than the sales market (1m) and predicted there would be a 25% drop-in activity this year.

Its analysis found asking rents were up 2.4% annually in March to £886 per month compared with 2.5% in February and the 2.3% recorded in December 2019.

The highest growth in asking rents was in Nottingham at 5.9% to £683 per month.

London remains the most expensive city to rent, at £1,631 per month, but this as up just 1.7% annually.

Gráinne Gilmore, head of research at Zoopla, said: “The flexibility of the rental market is one of the key factors which has allowed activity to bounce back more quickly than other parts of the property market.

“The rise in demand in the first two weeks in April indicates that some tenants are already mapping out their next move.

“As with the whole housing market however, activity levels and rental growth will likely be closely aligned to the economic landscape of the UK once the lockdown eases and the immediate impact of COVID-19 starts to recede.”