Renting in the UK: rents across Britain are rising three times faster than in London
Room rents are rising fastest outside the capital, reveals a new report by flat and house sharing site Spareroom.co.uk.
While London rents are now showing reduced growth of just under two per cent, averaging £747 a month, rentals across the rest of the UK are rising more than three times as fast, and even more in certain cities.
Luton, Bedfordshire, in London's commuter belt, has had the highest rise - of 14 per cent - taking the average monthly rent to £446.
This is closely followed by Swindon in Wiltshire, with average rents of £463, Crossrail hotspot Reading in Berkshire, where monthly rents are now £549, and increasingly trendy Bristol, in the South West, where rents have risen by 11 per cent to £463.
How the average cost of renting a room varies across the UK
“The first quarter of 2016 saw some respite for renters, thanks to an upturn in supply as buy-to-let investors rushed to complete ahead of the stamp duty increase," says Spareroom.co.uk director Matt Hutchinson."But this may only provide temporary relief - the UK’s residential rental market is still groaning under the weight of demand, particularly in London’s satellite towns.
"Even cities like Manchester and Birmingham, which offer some of the highest levels of supply for renters in the UK, are massively oversubscribed, with six tenants competing for every room."
Unsurprisingly, the most expensive rents are in London's satellite towns, with Twickenham in south-west London topping the list with an average rent of £647, followed by Esher in Surrey at £629, and Barnet, in Hertfordshire, at £625.
Meanwhile, rents in Bradford in West Yorkshire, Dundee in Scotland, and Sunderland in the North East all average £320 or less.
