Private sector rents across the UK recorded a modest rise in the first quarter of 2018 and growth of 0.9% in the last 12 months, the latest index shows.
It means that rents have been more or less unchanged in 2017 compared with annual growth in 2016 when rents increased by 4% in the first half of the year, according to the data from tenant referencing firm HomeLet.
It also shows that the average rent in the sector is now £912 but when London is excluded from the calculation it falls to £75, up 1.1% on an annual basis, while average rents in London were £1,569, up by 1.5% year on year.
It is a different scenario in Scotland were rents have increased by 5.6% year on year. The East Midlands saw rents increase by 3.3% while in Northern Ireland and the West Midlands there was a rise of 2.4%.
In the North West rents increased by 2.1% year on year, by 0.6% in Yorkshire and Humber, by 0.3% in the East of England and by 01.% in the South East and the South West of England.
Average rents fell the most in Wales with a decline of 3.2% while they were down by 2.5% in the North East of England.
On a month on month basis growth was led by London with average rents up 2.1%, followed by Scotland with a rise of 1.9%. Rents also increased by 0.5% in Wales and the East Midlands, by 0.4% in the West Midlands and by 0.1% in the North West and the South East on a monthly basis.
According to Martin Totty, chief executive of HomeLet, the rental market is going through a period of stability with rents rising slower than consumer price inflation while house prices have continued to rise.
‘This data shows that a year into the three year phasing-in of changes to buy to let landlord taxation, rental inflation so far has remained steady rather than increasing as some commentators had predicted,’ he said.
