Eleven out of 12 regions in the UK have seen prices rise in the three months to January 2016, compared to the same period last year, with only the North West of England seeing prices dip by 3.4%, according to the Homelet Rental Index.

Rents for new tenancies in Greater London are rising at the slowest rate for almost two years. In Greater London the average rent on new tenancies for the three months to January 2016 was £1,510 per month, while the average for the rest of the UK, excluding Greater London, was £740 per month. So, while the rate of growth in rent prices in Greater London may have slowed, monthly rents on new tenancies are still more than twice the average for the rest of the UK.

But rent prices in other regions continue to rise steadily with the South East of England and the East Midlands seeing the highest rent price rises in the three months to January 2016, at 7.2% and 6.8% respectively.

Martin Totty, Barbon Insurance Group’s chief executive officer, said: “There has been a further fall in the rate at which average rents in the Greater London area are rising. In recent years, the capital has seen much faster rates of increase than the rest of the country, but it may be that an affordability ceiling has now been reached in London and that rents will now track other parts of the UK more closely.

“The fact that UK-wide average rents in the private rented sector continue to show sustained upwards growth reflects there is still strong demand for rental properties, driven mainly by the impact of the long-term structural imbalance in supply and demand of property.”