People invest in property for two reasons – capital growth and rental income.
We’ve recently written a few articles on capital growth so we wanted to give both sides of the story and look at rental performance in regions in the past year also.
All figures have been taken from the HomeLet Rental Index April 2021. The Rental Index is now based on around 1 million references processed each year on behalf of UK Letting Agents, the Rental Index represents the largest, most insightful and up-to-date view on the UK’s private rented sector.
For April 2021, the data shows that the average rental price for a new tenancy in the UK was £996 per calendar month (pcm), which is up by 0.4% from last month, and up 2.9% on last year. When London is excluded, the average rent in the UK is now £853 which is up 0.7% on last month and 6.2% on last year.
Average rents in London are down YOY, showing a 5.3% fall between April 2020 and April 2021; this is the 12th decrease in annual variance in subsequent months.
However, 10 of the 12 regions showed an increase in annual variance, with the top 5 leader board looking like this:
- East Midlands at 10.5%
- South West at 9.6%
- North West & East of England at 6.8%
- Yorkshire & The Humberside at 6.5%
- South East at 6.0%
A pandemic has been ruling the headlines, often giving a negative outlook on the property market in terms of tenants being unable to pay and court hearings suspended. However, although this has been true for some, the figures overall indeed show a very positive outlook for the rental market as well as capital growth.
Andy Halstead HomeLet and Let Alliance CEO says: “Whilst tenants may aspire to homeownership in the long term, the private rented sector will always play a vital role in the mobility of the nation and the overall housing supply chain. As demand increases, the UK needs more rental stock for tenants, not less. Without policy informed fully by property professionals, rents will rocket to record levels this summer.”
ERE Property has many developments in these rental hot spot areas. If you would like to speak one of our Investment Directors about starting or adding to your property investing journey, please contact us on [email protected] or phone +44 (0) 113 380 8930.
To read the full HomeLet Rental Index report click here.
