In September, the average rental price for a new tenancy in the UK was £967 per calendar month, up by 2.5% last year, according to HomeLet’s rental index for the month.
Rents in London increased by 3.3% last month than on the same month of 2018, with the average rent in the capital now standing at £1,694 a month – 75% higher than the UK average. Excluding the capital, the average UK rental value was £797 – up 2.2% on last year.
Separate data from Nationwide reported that house prices rose by just 0.2% in September, down from 0.6% in August and marking the tenth month in a row that the annual house price growth was recorded as under 1%.
All 12 of the regions monitored by HomeLet showed an increase in rental values, which appear to be in line with inflation, recorded at 2% in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) in June 2019.
Five of the regions saw a year-on-year increase of over 3%. The North West (4.4%), the East Midlands (3.8%), the South West (3.4%), Greater London (3.30%) and the North East (3.10%) all witnessed rent increases faster than the UK average.
HomeLet references over 500,000 tenants every year to provide up-to-date data on rental values in the UK. The trends reported within the index are brand-new tenancies, which were arranged in the most recent period.
The table below provides a regional breakdown of the latest average rental values across the UK:
Region | Sep-19 | Sep-18 | Annual Variation | Aug-19 | Monthly Variation |
North West | £739 | £708 | 4.40% | £741 | -0.30% |
East Midlands | £653 | £629 | 3.80% | £655 | -0.30% |
South West | £846 | £818 | 3.40% | £852 | -0.70% |
Greater London | £1,694 | £1,640 | 3.30% | £1,689 | 0.30% |
North East | £535 | £519 | 3.10% | £531 | 0.80% |
West Midlands | £718 | £701 | 2.40% | £720 | -0.30% |
Yorkshire & Humberside | £657 | £644 | 2.00% | £655 | 0.30% |
Wales | £634 | £621 | 2.10% | £636 | -0.30% |
Scotland | £676 | £663 | 2.00% | £671 | 0.70% |
East of England | £927 | £915 | 1.30% | £930 | -0.30% |
Northern Ireland | £673 | £664 | 1.40% | £664 | 1.40% |
South East | £1,045 | £1,043 | 0.20% | £1,064 | -1.80% |
UK | £967 | £943 | 2.50% | £970 | -0.30% |
UK excluding Greater London | £797 | £780 | 2.20% | £802 | -0.60% |