An online room-letting platform claims rents have risen up to eight per cent in wake of the Tenant Fee Act.
ideal flatmate says it has analysed 29,000 room share listings on its site added between April and June and found that in the second quarter of this year, the average cost of renting a room in the UK has increased by eight per cent to £577 per month.
London remains the most expensive at £783, up five per cent since the previous quarter. Cambridge and Oxford are also amongst some of the most expensive at £613 and £588 respectively, both seeing some of the largest quarter to quarter increases at eight to nine per cent.
Liverpool has also seen prices increase eight per cent on the previous quarter, although at £473 per month, it remains far more affordable.
There has also been notable growth across Sheffield, Newcastle, Leicester, Birmingham and Nottingham since Q1.
However, both Bournemouth and Portsmouth have seen double-digit decline, with smaller falls also seen in Glasgow, Southampton, Leeds, Bristol and Plymouth.
“A large degree of rental price growth in the second quarter of this year is almost certainly attributed to the introduction of the tenant fee ban. While a positive step towards safeguarding tenants, its implementation has seen many landlords and letting agents opt to increase rents from June onwards which seems to have had a notable impact on rental costs in a short period of time” claims the platform’s co-founder, Tom Gatzen.
“The highest demand for room rentals tends to come at the start of the year or the start of the summer and traditionally this brings a lull in demand during the second quarter of the year. As a result, we often see prices drop along with demand and this is generally most prominent in coastal and university towns” he adds.
%20-%20IMAGE%20Client%20Accounting%20%E2%80%93%20what%20are%20your%20options.jpg)
Join the conversation
Jump to latest comment and add your reply
MHCLG were well aware of this as Heather Wheeler mentioned it to an ARLA conference, saying that rent levels would be monitored. She stopped short of saying catagorically what would be done if that were found to be the case.
I imagine the Govt would consider two options Reversing the Tenant fee Ban ( and accepting it was a botched and failed policy ) or, Rent Controls.
Labour already have mad it clear that Control would be its policy, and the Tories are trying to steal labour voters to ensure they collect enough votes to get across the line.
Which do you think MHCLG will choose ?
Rent controls would simply result in mass fraud by tenants and LL.
Tenancies need to be sustainable and PROFITABLE.
Rent controls would prevent that.
Consequently tenants and LL will conspire with eachother to evade rent controls.
HMRC would see a massive reduction in tax revenues.
LL would struggle to mortgage properties as lenders could only base them on the controlled rent levels not the actual rent paid.
LA would lose massive amounts of business as LA can hardly collect more than the controlled rent.
Rent controls would propagate mass fraud by LL.
They would have little alternative.
Not sure how the PRA would react as clearly LTV risks would substantially increase
LL would need massive deposits as controlled rent will only allow a certain amount of lending.
This could cause property prices to decrease causing many LL to breach their lending covenants.
This then would result in lenders calling in mortgages as few LL would have the resources to reduce LTV.
This would cause a property price collapse.
Reduce the value of properties and find yourself out of power the next GE.
The Tories would be advised not to introduce rent controls at their peril.
Please login to comment