As it stands at the moment, the UK rental market is experiencing one of its hottest periods for decades. There are plenty of reasons that could explain this impressive performance, not least that we’ve just come out of a once-in-a-lifetime event like the pandemic.
Further to that, the pandemic put a lot of generational shifts into hyperdrive and accelerated a lot of changes that governments were expected to see over, say, 20 years into the space of 18 months.
For example, the government’s transport policy has taken into consideration that with the change in working habits and the increase of homeworking in the last few years, that there would be less people using trains and buses due to working from home. Their strategy was to plan this in over two decades, but instead this has happened in little over a year.
With all of that in mind, habits are changing quickly and, with it, so is the way people are working and travelling. Ultimately and inevitably, it’s also affecting the way people are living.
With city living less of a focus, people are free to move around into areas they might not have considered before, which is creating huge levels of demand for property and increasing rates quickly, is now the time to move?
Rents are soaring
As reported in the Guardian, “Rents across the UK are rising at the fastest pace since 2008 as strong demand outstrips supply. Private sector rents in September were 4.6% higher than a year earlier at £968 a month on average, marking the strongest growth in 13 years, Zoopla found.
Excluding London, rents across the UK were up by 6% annually, a figure that Zoopla said was a 14-year high.”
This poses a bit of a problem for private renters who might be considering moving or think that they may need to move soon if, for example, their landlord is considering selling their property.
The question on most people’s minds is whether it makes sense to move now or wait a while in the hope that rents may calm down a little bit.
Whilst it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask, there’s really very little to suggest that the rental market will tail off in the next 12 months at least. In reality, yes, things are likely to level out again but there’s still some way to go before we return to complete normality and the market finds its level again.
So, the advice would be if you are considering moving soon then it may be best to make the move now to secure a fixed rental rate for at least the next 12 months and avoid rental inflation.
As always, it always helps to speak to an expert so get in touch with us today about the type of property you’re looking to find and we can help.
