Covid causes rent levels to dip in many of the biggest cities

Research by lettings agency Keller Williams suggests the Coronavirus crisis has led to dip in rents across the UK - but a larger fall in London. 

The figures show that across England, Covid has caused average rent per month to fall 0.8 per cent. 

Rental prices in the capital fell 3.4 per cent over the past year, with the East of England and South East seeing declines of 2.4 and 1.6 per cent respectively.

Keller Williams also analysed rents across 15 major cities and found that just Bournemouth saw a larger decline than London, falling 4.4 per cent in 2020. 

Bristol was down 3.3 per cent, Nottingham down 1.7 per cent and Portsmouth down 1.1 per cent. 

There were some rises. The North East has seen the largest increase in rent in all regions in England with the average monthly rent up 3.0 per cent in 2020.

The largest growth - spectacularly - was in Newcastle where the rent jumped a huge 16.6 per cent during 2020. This is the largest increase of all major cities analysed by Keller Williams. 

Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester also saw rises.

“The impact of Covid has been more pronounced across the less affordable regions of the rental market. This will have been largely due to lower demand, as well as being influenced by tenant affordability with many struggling financially due to job losses and furlough” explains Ben Taylor, chief executive of Keller Williams. 

“However, while tenants have seen a welcome reduction in the cost of renting, these regions remain home to the most robust rental costs and this will reassure landlords. Many may have feared a far larger market collapse was on the cards and so far, this simply hasn’t been the case.

“In fact, in many areas, the cost of renting has actually climbed despite the wider backdrop of a pandemic.

"With the vaccine now being rolled out and hopefully some light at the end of the tunnel, we should see market uncertainty settle down considerably throughout the course of this year. Although based on how 2020 turned out, we will believe it when we see it.”

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