Are rental prices leaping up in your area?

[Heysiripissoff]

We moved from the SE to the Midlands last year (forced out in the end by higher and higher rents).

I'm just looking again as our contract will be up soon and prices have increased by £100 - £150 in 12 months. Some of the properties we looked this time last year at are up again for rent at at least £100 more than last year.

It's not a great or desirable area either to say the least. I don't understand it. Especially not after the past year with so many people losing jobs.

Anecdotal only, but I’ve been doing a lot of research and it seems a lot of private landlords are selling up, so there are fewer properties available. I am one of them.

You can no longer offset mortgage interest payments against rental payments, which means it’s no longer a viable investment for people who retained properties that were only just ticking over. (I’m one of these - accidental landlord).

A fair few landlords have been burnt by Covid - many tenants can’t pay their rent, or won’t, because they’re protected by the eviction ban. Those tenants are going to find themselves homeless and blacklisted eventually, but in the meantime they’re sitting tight whilst their landlords scramble. Irony being the landlord probably owned the rental property solely as a back-up if they lost their primary income; now they have neither.

Also know of a few landlords who own outright and are deliberately keeping their property empty to avoid the hassle of Covid tenant handovers, and upgrading it with a view to offering them only as Air B&B in future, because that’s not as regulated as long term rental.

I think rents may come down once job losses filter through, but in the meantime there’s chaos and uncertainty. If you can negotiate with your landlord directly, they’ll probably keep the rent the same to avoid it being empty. IME it’s letting agents who push for rent increases, because they’re on percentage commission.

Yep. We could now rent out our one bed flat for £300 more than last year and apparently demand is really high, but we can’t sell it because the flat market has crashed

I guess maybe the people who can’t get on to the property market right now because of the reduced mortgages available are renting instead? Or people who’ve decided to move out because of the stress/space pressures of being home all the time?

It's such a shit time all round.

The landlord here wants to raise our rent by £100 a month when we renew the contract. He won't negotiate. It's a crap house in a crap area. But looking around today, all the others have gone up too. So it's going to be better to stay put rather than pay out for moving costs.

Or, we move further north to an even cheaper area. But I've already moved my 6th former across the county once, I don't want to do that again now.

I bloody hate renting. But Dh only earns 31k (he's got a good job for a local authority still in the SE, but LA pay is laughable). I am a care worker with two young kids who would need childcare which would wipe out my min wage earnings. With all the rent we've had to shell out over the years, we haven't been able to save a deposit. We moved here so we might be able to save a bit and so I wouldn't be killing myself working 12 hour night shifts and looking after the kids in the day on no sleep just to pay rent, but now that seems to be going by the wayside

I hear you, I rented for years and hated it even though my landlords weren’t awful (although quite a few an unfortunate combination of controlling and inept).

Have you had a face to face conversation with your Landlord and explained why that £100 a month is a big deal? Unless s/he has lost their own job (which is totally possible in the current time) they’re going to be out of pocket just from the property being empty and re-marketed.

Your other alternative is to sign up for a longer contract with no rental reviews so both you and the landlord have a bit of security.

They have plummeted in London.

The landlord said when we took on the contract that he would not be negotiating any rent increases. It was like it or lump it basically. He's the sort of landlord who fills his other houses to the brim for as much money as he can get.

We didn't have much of a choice at the time, estate agents were nervous of us moving 150 miles with Dh job still being in London - even though he had his manager write them a letters saying that he worked remotely and it was all fine, he had a safe and secure job where he'd been for almost ten years.

One agent even said he thought we were pulling a fast one and Dh wouldn't be working as soon as we moved in and we'd stop paying rent! We had such a hard time, coupled with finding a college for Ds to continue his course, it was a nightmare all round.

@thecatneuterer

They have plummeted in London.

Not in the area we lived our whole lives, sadly or we'd be right back!

The other issue is that the cost of referencing now falls on the landlord rather than then tenant and thus this means the landlord increases the rent to offset the extra expense. Also the abolition of pet deposits has led to higher rents. Each time the government adds any extra layer of expense to the landlord it impacts on rents. They think they are doing tenants a favour but they really aren't.

Your landlord sounds a bit of a dick so can understand your reluctance to negotiate.

I would renew the contract until your sixth former has finished college, and in the meantime start asking around your friends, neighbours and colleagues about their flats and landlords - if they’re planning to move on, their places may become available and any landlord would be chuffed to avoid letting agents and you’d have the peace of mind of knowing your landlord was a good one.

sunshine it's so hard as we don't know anyone here! Not a single person. Only the in laws who are about 30 miles away (in an area we can't afford), who've never rented.

Yeah, he is a dick. There is a huge padlock on the loft - he said it would cost us another £25 a month for the keys to use it

He made me feel so uncomfortable when we met him, but like I said, time was running out and choices were almost non existent.

Rents are crazy in our area, mostly due to a massive issue with supply. We’ve been overseas for 7.5 years and DC and I came back and it was a nightmare to find somewhere to rent - didn’t want to buy as we didn’t have school places yet/everything a bit up in the air with covid and DHs job etc.

We eventually found somewhere but there were 5 of us ‘bidding’ and we only got it as we were in a position to pay the entire 12 months rent upfront.......... Ridiculous!

@Autumn101 that's crazy!! One of the reasons we go this place was that in the end, the in-laws agreed to pay 6 months rent up front for us (we just paid them each month instead), as security because of all the nervousness that Dh would ditch his job on moving.

I know!!! Fortunately we had the money in savings but it was horrible transferring it all....... Even now rentals are considerably more expensive than they were last summer abs hardly any around. Also hardly any houses for sale

Would the in-laws go guarantor on a mortgage for you? Do you need as much deposit if you have a guarantor? Just a thought..

Maybe rentals are going up everywhere EXCEPT London? We have a flat in central London, and when we enquired about renting it out last year, were told to expect at least £200 a month less than we rented it out for 5yrs ago!

I would also guess its landlords selling up. We live in a rented house for work, so rent our place out. ( Im not a accidental landlord btw, I wanted to stay on the ladder). We work hundreds of miles from where we own.

I rent my place out well below market rate but I put it up this year 1) Because all the talk about having my rights to take ownership of it back scares me and it needs to work harder for the risk, I haven't increased the rent in five years at all but I cant offord to have a house, getting lower rent than a studio flat because it's not helping anyone 2) it feels like a government seized assets some times, if my Tennants leave I will not rent it again.

I dont know at any point I could loose our current rental and not being able to sell my asset to rent somewhere else was never something I had never bargained on.

@KILNAMATRA

Would the in-laws go guarantor on a mortgage for you? Do you need as much deposit if you have a guarantor? Just a thought..

No. They are very well off and have offered Dh a deposit - but only if he signs something to say that I will not have my claim over the house or any money if we split or he dies. And it has to be a house they chose, in an area they chose. And my child from my previous marriage will not benefit from any future inheritance from it in any way.... he told them to sod off, quite rightly.

So it's complicated with them to say the least!

@LegoAndLolDolls Christ, what a position to be in

I'm in Edinburgh, keeping an eye on the rental market as not sure whether to buy a small flat or rent a bigger one. I see lots of ads that stay online for quite a while and then the rent gets reduced.

I think it's a combination of factors, there will be many breakups and families needing properties now, people who have lost their jobs and are moving areas. People who have sold their homes and are biding their time to buy a new one so renting in the meantime. Also people working remotely may wish to be in towns with more access to the countryside / sea so they have good walks and space around them.