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Buy to Let

Slowdown in rent rises in September

Christina Hoghton
Written By:
Christina Hoghton
Posted:
Updated:
26/10/2017

The monthly dip is welcome news for tenants, but rents are still up over the last year

The number of letting agents who saw landlords increasing prices for tenants fell to 27% in September, down from 35% in August, bringing to an end months of rising rent costs for tenants.

This is the first month-on-month decrease since May, when the figure also stood at 27%, according to ARLA Propertymark.

But the number of tenants experiencing rent hikes is still up year on year; in September 2016, only 24% of agents reported rising rent costs.
 
Supply and demand

There were 79 prospective tenants registered per member branch last month, up 10% from August when there were 72 per branch.
 
Supply of rental stock remained steady, with the number of properties managed by letting agent branches staying the same in September as in August, at 189. This is down 2% from September 2016, when agents managed 193 on average.
 
David Cox, ARLA Propertymark’s chief executive, said: “Last week’s consumer price index (CPI) showed that inflation rose to 2.8% in September, up from 2.7% in August. As the cost of living increases, the last thing tenants need is for their rents to rise, so while it’s great that month on month we’re finally seeing a decrease in the number of landlords hiking costs, we need to look at the bigger picture.

“There are still more than a quarter of tenants experiencing rent hikes every month – and that’s too high. As summer drew to a close in September, demand increased in line with our expectations, and while it’s too soon to see the effect of this on rent costs, we know that when supply and demand are conflicting, rent prices will just continue to rise.”