The number of available rental homes has dropped below the previous year’s level for the first time since 2022 and is now 1% lower than a year ago, reports Rightmove.

It believes this decline in the second quarter might have been driven more by a drop in newly listed properties for rent than an increase in the speed of the market and says the balance between supply and demand appears to be stabilising. The average rental home now receives 10 enquiries, compared with 11 a year ago and 22 at the peak of competition in 2022, although it is still above the pre-pandemic average of five enquiries per home.

New analysis from TwentyEA reveals that almost 850,000 properties have left the PRS across the UK in the last decade, the equivalent to 18% of all PRS stock. It believes while this can’t be attributed solely to the Renters’ Rights Act, the highest volume of former rental properties was sold in 2025, almost 181,000.  

Level

However, it reports that rental supply has reached its highest level in seven years, rising by more than 17% so far in 2026 versus 2025 and is now at its largest point for seven years. TwentyEA reckons the build-to-rent sector is helping to drive this, as property listings for these properties in Q2 2026 were 22% higher than in Q2 2025.

Rightmove reports that the average advertised rent of homes outside London has risen by 1.9% this quarter to a new record of £1,397 a month. The average advertised rent outside London is now 2.3% higher than a year ago, while London rents also reached a new high of £2,791 a month, with rents increasing by 2% on last quarter, the biggest quarterly increase since 2023.

Average

Rightmove property expert Colleen Babcock believes rents are returning to more familiar seasonal patterns and stable growth “Even though supply is no longer increasing, the market remains much more balanced than it was at the peak of competition in 2022,” she says.

Despite this, affordability remains a key consideration for renters, with annual wage growth easing to 4.4% and many becoming increasingly price-conscious, which is helping to keep rental growth at more sustainable levels than in recent years, despite rents continuing to edge higher.

The rental market is still seeing large regional differentiations, reports Rightmove, which says northern regions continue to outperform in terms of annual rent growth. The North East and North West have both recorded annual rent increases of 4.1% compared with 1.5% in East Midlands and East of England.

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