Growing demand for rented accommodation has resulted in higher costs for tenants and a healthy increase in returns for landlords.

The Independent – Sunday, 27 January 2008

Buy-to-let specialist lender Paragon Mortgages reports that rental incomes in the UK rose by 2.5 per cent during the past month, bringing the annualised rate of growth to 19.4 per cent. Tenants are paying £965 on average a month, compared with £808 a year ago.

The buoyancy of rental income offset the cooling in the rate of house price inflation and led to an increase in yields last year. Having been steady at 6 per cent for five months, December saw average gross yields rise to 6.2 per cent – full article