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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Room rents rise 8% following introduction of the tenant fee ban

The average cost of renting a room in the UK increased by 8% between April and June and now stands at an average of £577 per month, according to Ideal flatmate.

The company’s rental room index, which looks at the cost of renting a room across the UK’s major cities, found that London remains the most expensive place to rent a room at £783 per calendar month (pcm), up 5% since the previous quarter.

Cambridge and Oxford are also amongst some of the most expensive at £613pcm and £588pcm respectively, both seeing some of the largest quarter-to-quarter increases at 8-9%. 

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The room share platform, which crunched the numbers from more than 29,000 room share listings on its site during the second quarter of the year, also found that Liverpool has also seen prices increase 8% on the previous quarter, although at £473pcm, it remains far more affordable.

There has also been notable growth across Sheffield, Newcastle, Leicester, Birmingham and Nottingham since Q1.

But not everywhere has seen the price of a room increase with both Bournemouth (-13%) and Portsmouth (-10%) seeing a double-digit decline.

Having seen strong growth in Q1, Glasgow has seen room rental costs drop by -6% quarter-on-quarter. Southampton, Leeds, Bristol and Plymouth have also seen the cost of renting a room reduce. 

In London, Barking and Dagenham remains the most affordable borough for a room rental at £561pcm, with the City of London the least affordable at £1,140pcm.

Havering, Sutton, Harrow, Camden and the City of London have seen the smallest growth in rental costs at 2%, while Lewisham and Kingston have seen the average room rental increase by 10% since Q1.

Tom Gatzen, co-founder of ideal flatmate, said: “A large degree of rental price growth in the second quarter of this year is almost certainly attributed to the introduction of the tenant fee ban. While a positive step towards safeguarding tenants, its implementation has seen many landlords and letting agents opt to increase rents from June onwards which seems to have had a notable impact on rental costs in a short period of time. 

“However, this hasn’t been the case everywhere and in the room rental space as opposed to the rental market as a whole, seasonal influences can have a big impact on the advertised price. 

“The highest demand for room rentals tends to come at the start of the year or the start of the summer and traditionally this brings a lull in demand during the second quarter of the year. As a result, we often see prices drop along with demand and this is generally most prominent in coastal and university towns.

“No let-up for London room sharers though, as prices continue to increase across the capital with the average cost of a room now some £40 higher on average a month than it was at the start of the year.”

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

Poll: Do you agree that a large degree of rental price growth in Q2 2019 is almost certainly attributed to the introduction of the tenant fee ban?

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  • Paul Conway

    The property market is going through so big changes and landlords are being forced to professionalise, so I am afraid room prices are not going to stop here. The customer (tenants) will always pay in the end, though that doesn’t mean we can’t add some value to them along the way. Let’s create great places to stay with the customer in mind, they are paying the bills after all.

    Paul Conway
    HMO Services

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    No way never again, what do you think we have been doing for the last 40 years only providing great properties & this is our thanks. The next time I hear the word professionalising I’ll scream, what they really mean is
    Digital Academics pressing buttons with their Digital / Apps / Accounts, regs etc, Bull sugar very unlikely a hands on LL among them.

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    • 12 July 2019 21:26 PM

    Any LL that provides a quality service is a professional.
    Whether they have 500 or one property.
    Being a corporate does NOT make you a professional.
    It is how you deliver your service that make a LL professional NOT how they choose to own the title deeds of the rental property.
    There are criminal corporate and sole trader LL.
    Existing legislation should be enforced to drive the criminal LL out of business or to get them to change their ways.
    The vast majority of LL are professional.
    Govt doesn't seem to wish to accept this is the case and insists on accepting the siren calls of the likes of the venal Shelter that all LL are evil and need to be corralled in obsequiousness to their pathetic opinions.
    Survey after survey shows a 95% tenant satisfaction with LL.
    Of course that doesn't mean complacency should be allowed.
    The PRS should always strive to deliver an ever better product.
    It is the criminals that tend to deal in low quality accommodation.
    Licensing doesn't achieve a thing.
    The criminals will always avoid enforcement.
    It is in their nature and until they are stopped such criminal LL will continue to be a blight on the PRS.
    But under NO circumstances are they in any way representative of the PRS as a whole.
    LL generally strive to be as professional as they can within the limitations of their capabilities.
    A compulsory LL CPD programme would be most useful.
    Far more effective than the useless licencing schemes.
    Govt needs to accept that the PRS for all its faults is mostly very professional whether a one man band or otherwise.

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    Very good post Paul.
    I agree that licensing doesn't work, as the authorities that administer these schemes are not pro-active in going after the rogue landlords.
    They are purely an inconvenience and extra expense to the 'good' landlords who have been doing it right all along.

     
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    mps require no qualifications to be an mp--perhaps that needs to change?

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