Private tenants in England were most likely to face a rent hike in the last year, while tenants in Wales saw a larger average increase.
Across both countries, about one in five properties saw their rents increase by 10% or more between February 2022 and September 2023, with rental prices rising for just over three-quarters (77%) of privately rented properties in London, the highest of all English regions and above the national average of 63%.
New ONS figures, based on revisiting the same properties in a 14-month period, reveal that although the proportion of properties where prices had risen was lowest in the North West (41%), the average rental price percentage increase was highest in the region (12.3%). This means that although tenants in the North West are less likely to have faced a recent price increase than in other English regions, when they did, it was more likely to be larger than anywhere else.
Across England and Wales, the average rental price percentage increase was higher for properties in September 2023 (9.7% and 11.3%, respectively) than for properties in September 2022 (8.4% and 10.5%, respectively). Although the proportion of properties in September 2023 where prices had risen was higher in England (63%) than Wales (41%), the average rental price percentage increase was lower in England (9.7%) than Wales (11.3%).
For privately rented properties revisited in September 2023 where prices had risen, the average rental price percentage increase was highest in England for flats and maisonettes (10%) and highest in Wales for semi-detached houses (12.4%).
The Bank of England recently blamed higher rents on more landlords than usual quitting the private rental market within its detailed quarterly report on the economy, where it explained that the strength of rental demand, relative to supply, meant that higher mortgage rates were generally being passed through to rents.
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