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Torment For Tenants - one analyst’s interpretation of latest house prices

Startling new housing market data has been interpreted as “torment for tenants” according to a business analyst.

The latest Halifax house price index shows values up 13 per cent in the past year - the highest price growth since 2004.

According to Hargreaves Lansdown, this means that renters saving for a 10 per cent deposit would have had to raise an extra £1,885 since January, just to stand still.

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Sarah Coles, senior personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, says savings for most people cannot keep pace with house price inflation. 

“Eventually the reality of rising prices will take its toll on confidence and cool the market, but we’re not there yet, and renters are paying the price.

“Since the beginning of 2022, house prices have risen £18,849, so just to stand still, renters saving for a 10 per cent deposit would have had to add almost £1,900 to their savings pot. Given the fact that hikes in the cost of everything from food to fuel have been unbearably painful since the start of the year, this is an impossible challenge.

“Rising prices may make homeowners feel wealthier, but they’re pushing renters further into the mire. Almost a fifth of people rent privately and a similar number live in social rented housing so more than a third of people are  facing unbearable pressure as prices rise” she claims.

Hargreaves Lansdown’s own Savings and Resilience Barometer, produced with Oxford Economics, shows that renters are less financially resilient on almost every measure than their home owning counterparts. 

They have less money left over at the end of the month, less in emergency savings, they’re more likely to be in arrears with bills and debts, and they’re not on track for a financially-comfortable retirement. 

“So while homeowners will be keeping their fingers crossed for a gentle tapering of house prices, and a return to more sedate price rises, there will be renters who can’t help hoping for prices to back off, to at least give them a chance of getting out of the rental cycle and taking a breather on the bottom rung of the housing ladder” Coles concludes. 

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.

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    Interest rate rises should be of far more concern to anyone wanting to buy a house. The monthly mortgage payment is the only thing that really matters long term.
    Asking prices and sales prices are often miles apart. Transactions are taking far longer than they ever have in the past so it's questionable how up to date any data is at the moment. By the time sales data feeds through it is probably nearly a year after the property was listed for sale.

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    You wouldn't think there is a cost of living crises when you see the hoards of people going abroad for holiday. I would have thought holidays are the first thing to cut out when times are hard.

  • George Dawes

    What goes up must come down
    Spinning Wheel got to go around
    Talking about your troubles it's a crying sin
    Ride a painted pony let the Spinning Wheel spin
    You got no money, you got no home
    Spinning Wheel all alone
    Talking about your troubles and you never learn
    Ride a painted pony, let the Spinning Wheel turn

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    C'mon George

    Tell us who wrote that?

     
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    It certainly takes a long time to sell at least the ones I know about maybe a year but Government wants the Capital Gains tax in a flash before you can catch your breath. There’s plenty of torment for landlords deliberately so as Gov’ have stated they are reducing the PRS especially for the big boys to take over our business with their blocks of flats that’s clear enough.
    I would be more concerned for the first buyers that have bought, rather than the ones that’s planning to buy as they will know in advance the rates are already

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    Increasing Rents due to Government Policies will not be helping the Situation

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    Market forces will always win out.

    If the Government increases the costs and risk for landlords then market forces will allow rents to increase to compensate for that increased cost and risk.

    If Shelter, Acorn, Generation Rant etc want lower rents they should be lobbying the Government to make the PRS more attractive for people to invest in it, increase availability of rental properties and then market forces will act to reduce rents to ensure all available rental properties are taken.

    Hammering landlords just harms decent tenants and only helps the feckless and reckless.

     
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    Micheal Foley, you are correct. Like me you have dragged yourself up from the bottom, by your own endeavours. Boris Johnson has a career based on lying. The business model for his backers Is based on the Olympic site where tower blocks with extortionate tents have been built by rich Arabs.

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