Demand for rented accommodation in UK hits new high
Demand for rented accommodation in the UK is at its highest level for five years, leading to a shortage of available properties, a trade body said today.
Increasing numbers of consumers are renting as a result of being priced out of the property market, while the recent softening in house prices has caused other people to put buying a home on hold, further stoking demand.
The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) said demand was now so great that two-thirds of private sector letting agents in central London said they had more potential tenants than properties.
The problem was echoed across the South East, with 57% of agents there saying this was the case, and across the country as a whole 37% are reporting property shortages.
The most dramatic turnaround in the balance between supply and demand has been in central London, where the increase in supply over demand has soared 13-fold during the past five years, while across the rest of the South East it is six times higher.
Ian Potter, head of operations for ARLA, said: "This peak in demand should come as no surprise.
"It has been driven up by the many competing demands for rental accommodation and now we have softening house prices. Softening in the sales market is always a driver of further demand in the rental market."
The group said rent levels had also increased during the past six months, with 72% of letting agents in central London reporting a rise and 44% across the rest of the UK.
At the same time tenants are staying in properties for more than a year, and the average time a property is empty between tenants is now less than a month.
The survey is based on responses from 517 residential letting offices made during November.
