The most popular search term from prospective renters scouring Rightmove has become ‘Bills Included’.
The portal says that this term - which was only the sixth most searched-for term a year ago - has now overtaken other key search words such as ‘pets’ and ‘gardens’ and ‘garages’.
In addition, Rightmove explains that the average size of area that people are looking in to find a new place to rent has almost doubled in size compared with four years ago, suggesting that a lack of homes and record rents mean they need to cast their net wider.
In summer 2018 the average search area was 70 square kilometres and that has now jumped to 137 square kilometres. Hybrid working is also a likely factor as many people have more flexibility about where they live.
Rightmove spokesperson Tim Bannister says: “People looking for a new place to rent are casting their net much wider than before, in the hope that it will help them find a suitable place that they can afford. Although it’s not as constrained as it was a few months ago, the number of homes is still nowhere near enough to meet demand from tenants.
“The lack of homes is down to more people choosing to stay put and sign longer contracts, some landlords selling up due to more onerous taxes and others taking advantage of record house prices, and hybrid working shifting some demand to more rural and suburban pockets of Great Britain. This has all led to a fiercely competitive rental market in many areas with agents reporting that in some cases properties are being rented out in just a few hours.”
The number of new rental properties coming to market continues to improve, up by three per cent in July versus June, but the number of available properties is still currently 25 per cent lower than this time last year.
As a result the average asking rent outside London is 19 per cent higher than this time in 2020, up from £949 per calendar month to a record of £1,126 pcm
With no signs of supply easing Rightmove is forecasting that nationally rents will end the year some eight per cent higher than last year
Top five most popular search terms in Rightmove’s Keyword Sort, August 2022:
1 Bills included
2 Pets
3 Furnished
4 Balcony
5 Garden
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Top five most popular search terms in Rightmove’s Keyword Sort, August 2021:
1 Pets
2 Balcony
3 Furnished
4 Garden
5 Garage
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It's a shame Rightmove didn't say how the number of properties with bills included has changed.
Ok on Rightmove the top 5 Tenants preference’s.
So for me that excludes 1,2 & 4 that’s simply enough.
Just shows how big the gulf is between what tenants want, and what they are going to get. And looks like that's only going to get worse.
You're not wrong. There are plenty of tenants at the moment struggling to find somewhere to rent full-stop. The incentive for landlords to take care of bills, accommodate pets or provide furniture is null and void when there are multiple tenants desperately vying for every property/room and I'm sure the initial search criteria for many becomes increasingly compromised.
''I want doesn't get'', that's what I told my children, and now tell my grand children.
Kilometres? We still have miles in this country.
A lot of disappointing search results in the future then ! What landlord would take the risk now of “ bills included “…. One who maybe likes train surfing, on the roof !!!
I would never go the ' bills included' route, HMOs might be a bit different, however these could be modified with a meter to each room though, something I would do if I owned an HMO
I include bills in HMOs and so far it hasn't been as scary as all the media hysteria made me think it would be. The biggest problem since last September has been trying to get regular bills out of the companies I was dumped on and getting credit balances refunded. Now I've switched to Octopus and get bills whenever I submit readings it's easy to monitor usage.
I'm taking whatever steps seem like a good idea to minimise usage. I've replaced a couple of old tumble driers with heat pump ones in my bigger HMOs, installed hot water diverters on houses with solar panels, installed HMO heating programmers in a couple of student houses and have solar panels and batteries on order for 2 houses. It's all a bit of an experiment and some of it is a very hefty expense but it should all pay for itself in a reasonable time frame.
Rents for newly available rooms in HMOs are at market rent. Whether I need to increase rents for long term tenants partly depends on whether we are excluded from any government help again (been denied the Council Tax £150), whether tenants make some effort to cut usage (most have been very good so far) and how much the kWh price rises to. One tenant has already told me they had discussed it as a household and would far rather have a rent increase than a Section 21.
In 2 of my student houses I'm only including gas this year. Most student houses in the city are plus all bills so getting gas included is a bonus for them. They'll obviously get the £400 electric support off their electric bill. The situation with the in between energy suppliers and media hysteria when student tenancies were being signed made me very squeamish about all inclusive.
I'm a bit more relaxed about it now. I've taken steps to minimise usage, tenants are making an effort and seem to genuinely appreciate having at least some bills included in the rent.
I also still have memories of before I included bills of the condensation issues when tenants refused to heat the houses and would try to dry washing all over the place with no ventilation.
Andrew rightly so, HMO’s are worse you have no control over what they use and now the way energy prices have gone even worse, no wonder Its their No 1 search still looking for mugs. How do you meter a room without a rewire of every room individually not practical or even possible when kitchens & other appliances are Shared. Some HMO’s might have extra facilities for cooking & washing then there maybe a possibility there ask our friend Big Daddy.
Watch out for the Valuation Officer if you give them those facilities they are on to you and put a separate C/tax Band on each unit or let min ‘A’ £1200. pa, Ah sure its only another £100.00 pm onto their room Rent.
Also complicates your DICR separate test for each part of the house ?.
Yes Michael I take your point, thankfully I'm not an HMO landlord
The long and the short of it all is, in West London, normal letting in my experience is £350/ 400. pm per room, HMO let separately in rooms are £550/750. There you go Bills included now are you all happy or were you expecting same price, saves time on your search or were you looking for a sagar Daddy.
Michael - I struggle to understand the figures you're quoting.
The LHA figure for Inner West London range from £623 pcm for a room in a shared house to £2309 pcm for a 4 bedroom house. Those rents were supposed to be the 30th percentile figure in April 2020. Today they are probably closer to the 10th percentile figure. Which would mean the vast majority of tenants are paying more than that.
Renting properties out at below market rent is fine if we're happy doing it and can afford to but I'm not sure it should be considered normal. The unintended consequence is that if we report low rents on the Valuation Office survey form it gives the government an excuse to keep the LHA lower than it should be which disadvantages all low income tenants.
Location location location
Oh and bills excluded , gas and electric going up to extortionate levels , council tax no doubt to follow
I’m running a business not a charity
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