Revealed - Britain’s worst city for rental availability

New research has identified locations with the largest volume of available rental stock, based on those units at or below the current average rent. 

The analysis looked at the current average cost of renting in 15 major British cities, before analysing current rental market stock at or below this affordability benchmark to see which city was home to the greatest degree of affordable rental supply. 

The research shows that across England, 31 per cent of all current available rental stock is listed for £1,000 per month or less, close to the current average rent of £960 per month. This climbs to 55 per cent in Scotland and 52 per cent in Wales using their average monthly rental amounts of £1,042 in Scotland and £1,032 in Wales. 

However, when breaking the market down at city level, it’s Sheffield where tenants have the best chance of securing a property around or below the average cost of renting in the city. 

The current average cost of renting in Sheffield sits at £717 per month and the research shows that there are currently some 1,739 rental properties listed with an asking rent of up to £800. This equates to 68 per cent of total rental stock currently listed across the city. 

Liverpool ranks second, home to an average rental cost of £664 per month, the city also boasts no less than 62 per cent of current rental stock with asking rents of up to £700 per month.

In Glasgow, 61 per cent of current available rental stock is listed with an asking rent of up to £1,200 per month, with the average cost of renting in the Scottish city sitting at £1,105 per month. 

While London is notoriously the most expensive city in Britain when it comes to the cost of renting, the capital isn’t the worst when it comes to realistically priced stock levels. Some 21 per cent of all current London rentals boast an asking rent close to, or below, the capital’s current average rental cost of £1,751 per month. 

It is, in fact, Newcastle where tenants will have the hardest time finding a property based on the current average cost of renting. Just nine per cent of all current rental properties listed on the market in Newcastle have an asking price of £700 per month or less, close to the city’s current average rental cost of £681 per month. 

The research was commissioned by deposit alternative service Zero Deposit and chief executive Sam Reynolds says: “Today’s rental market is a perfect storm for tenants and for many, successfully navigating the rental market to find their perfect property is an impossibly tough task … Doing your research is always key, but especially today as tenants are being forced to heavily compromise and reset expectations to find an acceptable property. The compromises span the number of bedrooms, outside space and increasingly, the location of the property … Statistics on rental market affordability will often focus around the ‘average’ cost of renting in a given area and while this is useful information to have, it won’t necessarily provide you with a realistic benchmark of how affordable a given area is.”