To accept this rent increase?

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Hi, just posting on here as I don’t have anyone to ask in real life for advice!

I’m in my 20s and live alone. I rent an apartment in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, however I’m not from here to know if rent prices are reasonable or not. Aibu to accept this rent increase or should I try to push back? (With the risk being the landlord ends my tenancy anyway.)

I pay £850 per month for a basic small 1 bed apartment in a building with annoying neighbours. The landlord wants to increase the rent to £940 per month. I don’t really think there’s many other options out there from looking on Zoopla, as good properties tend to get snapped up quite quickly.

I earn £40k however currently going through a stressful time at work and am looking for new jobs, so it’s not an ideal time to uproot and move and go flat hunting. However I’m not sure if financially it’s viable for me to blindly accept this rent increase, because at the moment I only have around £300 spare after bills/essential costs. I’m not sure if there’s room for negotiation

When was your last increase? I think you need to know the going rate as to whether its fair, and what would you do if your contract was ended because you won't pay it. It's not really relevant what you have left a month unfortunately, as that's not factored in to what the going rate is.

You can say no and negotiate. They might not want the hassle of getting someone else in and running the risk of not getting a good tennant plus the costs involved in re advertising the flat. They might well just be chancing their arm. Or say you would agree to it if they fix/update abc. We accepted a rent increase once- in exchange for them updating the bathroom.

Well my 1 bed housing association flat is £750 and I'm not in a city centre though we do have a direct train link to London. So it would seem to be in line with similar properties in your area. It's hard but you just have to suck it up. I'm only on 19k a year and managing so how you can't cope on 40k I'm not really sure?

The mortgage on your property will have likely gone up and ground rents have gone through the roof.

Anything under £1000 for a one bed flat is pretty good IMO. How does the £940 compare to similar properties in the area?

OP could have credit card debt, a car on finance, a relative needing help with care costs, anything. It’s irrelevant. If they say that’s all they have left after essential outgoings then that’s what they have left .

It was my understanding you can only put the rent up a maximum of 9% a year? My maths isn't great but I think this exceeds that? You could say no on these grounds.

I live in Birmingham and I’d say that’s cheap to about going rate in the Jewellery Quarter.

Rents were £800pm+ in that area when I last was looking and that was about seven years ago (and obviously a lot has changed with the economy/mortgage rates since then)

I ended up renting a 2-bed city centre apartment which was £1350 per month, and it was really nothing special. Rents are just ridiculous unfortunately

Thanks everyone. I tried to negotiate but they’re firm at £935. If only I could get a better paying job to compensate!

I would imagine the landlord had to remortgage and therefore needs to increase so will stand firm on the price they need to cover their costs. My mortgage went up £1000 per month last December so I think it’s an acceptable level of increase.