“Quite Staggering” Rent Rises Last Month

July was a record breaking month for the rental market, claims a PropTech company.

Goodlord analyses tens of thousands of completed tenancies each month, and says last month saw the highest average rental costs since at least 2019.

As rents soared, void periods also dropped dramatically. This set another record: the shortest void periods ever recorded by the Index.

The company says pressure on rental stock has been increasing over the last year. The summer months are traditionally the busiest time for the market, typically thanks to a surge in student lets across July, August and September.

The pace of student lets, combined with rising interest rates and lack of stock, is likely to have created this unprecedented upward pressure on prices, Goodlord claims.

In detail, in July the average cost of rent in England hit £1,367 per property. This is 9.4 per cent higher than the previous record, set in September 2022, of £1,249.

July’s average cost of rent was, at £1,367, 19 per cent higher than June’s averages, when rents sat at £1,148 per property. This is a huge month-on-month increase: the average month-on-month increase in rent during the year to date has been 1.3 per cent.

Rents on tenancies completed in July rose by 10 per cent year-on-year.

Goodlord says the volume of larger, more expensive properties being let to groups of students in July ahead of the new academic year contributed to this rapid rise in average costs, as well as ongoing pressures to rental stock across the country.

Geographically, rents rose in every region monitored by the Index.

There were significant uplifts in average rents in the North West, which saw a 48 per cent annual rise in prices (£917 to £1,358), and the South West, which saw a 45 per cent annual increase in average prices (£1,191 to £1,725).

Greater London, the South East and the West Midlands all saw more modest increases.

The West Midlands is currently the cheapest region for renters, with Greater London the most expensive.

William Reeve, chief executive of Goodlord, says: “This month’s numbers are quite staggering. In July we do usually expect to see an increase in rents and a reduction in voids - and all indicators pointed to a particularly red hot summer for the rental market, if not the weather.

“So while the 10 per cent year-on-year increase is a big shift, the sharp drop in void periods is also particularly surprising.

“Digging into the data, we can see a large number of multiple occupancy student lets being confirmed during July, which has pushed up average prices in key regions such as the North East and South West.

“Traditionally, rental costs continue to increase until September before cooling off in the autumn, which could mean these aren’t the last records we’ll see broken before the year is out.”