Rents pass new milestone as market remains red hot

The average rent on a newly let home in Britain rose has hit £1,204 pcm - passing the £1,200 mark for the first time.

Annually the average rent on a newly let home is now £960 a year more in rent than this time in 2021.

Hamptons - the agency which drew up this data - says average rents passed the £1,100 mark back in September 2021, just 14 months ago.  Meanwhile rents first crossed the £1k milestone back in June 2019, before dipping during Covid and re-passing that point again in August 2020.

So far this year, average rents in five regions have moved into a new £100 price bracket.  

Greater London was the latest, with rents passing £2,100 pcm for the first time in October 2022. Rents in Inner London reached a new record high of £2,863 pcm in October, £1 pcm more than when rents in London’s priciest postcodes previously peaked back in October 2019.

This now means that rents in every area of the country are above where they were at the beginning of Covid.

Since the eve of the pandemic - January 2020 - rents have risen 19 per cent across Britain, equating to an additional £2,351 a year in rent. 

Hamptons says it’s seen more rental growth since the beginning of Covid than for at least eight years prior. While nationally rents recovered to their January 2020 levels within eight months, in Inner London it took 30 months to bounce back. 

In October, the average Inner London home cost nine per cent more to rent than it did in January 2020.  Meanwhile the South West has seen the strongest growth since then, with rents up 32 per cent or £265 per month.