‘Devastating news’ for families as rents soar

Rents across England and Wales reached a record £757 a month on average in September after jumping by 1.8 per cent month-on-month, according to LSL Property Services, which owns chains Your Move and Reeds Rains.

Record rents were recorded in seven out of 10 regions across England and Wales, in what charity Shelter described as “devastating” news for tenants.

Rents reached new peaks in Wales, London, the south east, the West Midlands, the East Midlands, the north west, Yorkshire and the Humber.

Average rents in September ranged from £533 a month in the north east to more than double this amount (£1,141) in London. Rents are now typically £13 higher than a previous high recorded in October 2012.

The rises coincided with a setback in tenants’ finances.

Some 8.5 per cent of all rent was late or unpaid at the end of September, up from 7.8 per cent in August, although the latest figure is still an improvement compared with September 2012 when 9.1 per cent of rents were in arrears.

Rents have risen by 2.1 per cent over the last year across the country, which is below the rate of consumer prices index inflation at 2.7 per cent.

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London rents soar

But in London rents have soared by 4.4 per cent, typically, in the space of a year, according to LSL.

Wales saw the next biggest annual rise, with a 3.1 per cent hike pushing average rents to £573.

The east of England was the only region to see rents drop, either on the year-on-year or the monthly measures.

Rents in the east have fallen by 1.4 per cent annually and by 0.8 per cent compared with August to reach £739 typically.

The findings show how strong levels of demand for homes are persisting in the private rental sector, despite a string of government measures designed to ease the leap onto the property ladder.

A new phase of the government’s flagship help to buy scheme to offer state-backed mortgages to people with deposits as low as 5 per cent was launched this month.

Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest have started offering deals under the scheme, with other major lenders including HSBC, Santander and Barclays planning to join at a later date.

Mortgage lenders have been handing out more loans to first-time buyers in recent months than at any other time since the credit crunch started.

But critics argue that more needs to be done to tackle the underlying problem of a shortage of homes, both for sale and for rent.

Read more: Families caught in 'rent trap' as costs continue to rise

‘Devastating news’

Roger Harding, Shelter’s director of campaigns, policy and communications, described the latest figures as “devastating news” for renters and show that it is still hard to get on the housing ladder.

He said: “As more people are priced out of home ownership and waiting lists grow longer, too many families are being left trapped in the unstable and expensive private rental market.

“Every day Shelter hears from people who are having to cut back on essentials as they struggle to pay their rent each month. With wages flat-lining, the fact that rents have reached record highs means that even more people will find it harder and harder to make ends meet.

“We need the government to fix our rental market to provide more security and get on with building many more genuinely affordable homes.”

David Newnes, director of LSL Property Services, said: “Higher rents in almost every region show that, despite government schemes, buying a first home is still a difficult aspiration.

“This is not only down to low salary growth, but also a general shortage of supply – which is the underlying reason why homes are getting more expensive.”

The findings are based on rents achieved on 20,000 properties.

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‘Damaging childhoods’

The charity earlier this year warned that families with children are bearing the brunt of the insecure tenancies, high rents, and constant moves that are standard in today’s market. The report is based on research with over 4,000 private renters – the largest study of its kind ever conducted.

1 in five families in England now rent privately, yet tenancy contracts of just six or 12 months are the norm. Government research shows that renting families are nine times as likely to have moved in the last year than families who own their homes.

The study found that one in 10 renting families have had to change their children’s school in the past five years because they moved from one rented home to another.