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% |