Channel 4 reveals surprising lettings habits of the UK population

25 June 2018

• Almost 1 in 10 (9%) renters in London would live without any windows or natural light if it meant they could have a 25% reduction in their rent, while 1 in 4 would live without central heating to pay less!
• Nearly 1 in 10 (9%) 18-24 year olds (that have viewed a property to rent) spend under 5 minutes viewing a property! That’s less time than it takes the average person to take a shower or have sex!*
• 42% of 18-34 year olds claim they would rather use an online-online service to directly rent a flat from a landlord than use a Letting Agency
• Over 1 in 5 (21%) Londoners would be put off dating someone they found out was a lettings agent and over 1 in 10 (11%) UK adults would be disappointed if their child chose a career as a lettings agent.

To tie in with the launch of Stath Lets Flats, a brand new Channel 4 comedy about Stath (Jamie Demetriou) an incompetent lettings agent, Channel 4 has found out some astonishing details about the UK’s lettings habits.

Londoners would forgo natural light and heating for cheaper rent

Londoners pay more rent than anywhere else in the UK. On average, half of your salary goes on rent if you live in London!* This high cost of living in London could be the reason that 1 in 10 renters in London say they would live without any windows or natural light if it meant they could have a 25% reduction in their rent, while 1 in 4 would live without central heating to pay less!

People spend less time seeing a property than having sex or a shower!

You may also be shocked to hear that almost one in ten (9%) 18-24 year olds (that have viewed a property to rent) spend less than 5 minutes viewing a property!! That’s less time than it takes the average person to take a shower or have sex!*

Millennials would rather use an online only service than use a lettings agent

More people are privately renting than ever before. Just over 10 years ago 11% of households in the UK were privately renting, in 2016 this percentage had jumped to 17%.* However with over a quarter (27%) of all UK adults having a negative experience with a lettings agent, it’s no wonder almost half (42%) of 18-34 year olds claim they would rather use an online-online service to directly rent a flat from a landlord than use a Letting Agency.

• 49% of all UK adults would use an online-only letting agency to find a property
• 33% would find a property via word of mouth
• 23% use social media to ask friends or family to find a place

Could this be the end of Stath the lettings agent and will the family business Michael & Eagle have to become online only to cater to generation rent?

We don’t want to date lettings agents

It’s fair to say that lettings agents have a bad reputation with 54% of those that have used a lettings agent to let out their property feel that they could have done a better job of letting out their property themselves! 70% of those who have rented through a letting Agent feel the Lettings Agency charged too much for their services and 70% of those that rent from a private landlord think lettings agents would say anything, even it is wasn’t true, if it meant they would rent the property. This reputation could be why over 1 in 5 Londoners (21%) would be put off dating someone they found out was a lettings agent which is almost twice as much as the rest of UK (11%). You may also be shocked to hear that over 1 in 10 (11%) UK adults claim they’d be disappointed if their child chose a career as a lettings agent.

The UK’s weirdest lettings experiences

Lots of us have had a bad lettings agent experience, even worse than having Stath show you around a flat! Here in their own words the UK public have told us some of their weirdest experiences when viewing a property for let:

“A toilet in a kitchen with no walls around it”

“A room was filled with adult blow up dolls”

“A garden hose protruding through a hole in the wall, described as the 'shower'”

“A house which was bizarrely furnished with more intricately dressed dolls than I knew existed in the world, each with their own wall shelf (spotlit) and frills everywhere, apart from one room in which the husband worked at things, locked away from his wife”

“Person forgot we were coming with the agent and where having sex as we opened the door”

“Current tenant in the house while we were viewing, very strange man that followed us around the house not speaking, then he sniffed my hair as we left”

“Finding a pink bath in the living room with koi swimming around!”

“No toilet in a house I viewed, just a 'Port a Potty'.”

“The entire ground floor was full - can't-see-the-carpet full - of bin bags of what seemed to be rubbish. This was weird enough, except the people who lived there seemed to be using the bags as furniture.”

“The house immaculate... Apart from the hallway and stairs which were covered in bird poo”

Location, Location, Location’s Phil Spencer commented: “With the London rental market being so ferocious it’s little wonder nowadays that some Londoners are prepared to live without natural light or heating in order to reduce rent costs, but people will always need lettings and estate agents and you wouldn’t get these whacky stories without them. While filming Location, Location, Location recently the camera was put down on the floor while Kirstie and I were discussing a sequence and the image that appeared on the directors monitor was a sex toy under the bed.”

Watch Stath Lets Flats from Wednesday 27th June at 10pm on Channel 4 and you can catch up after on All 4.

Notes to editors

All figures, unless otherwise stated are from YouGov PLC. Total sample size was 2097 adults.

Fieldwork was undertaken between 8th – 10th June 2018. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).

*Other figures soured from ONS (Office of National Statistics): Labour Force Survey and ONS- Housing, The National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and Statista

Stath Lets Flats series information

Stath (Jamie Demetriou) is an incompetent Greek-Cypriot lettings agent, working for his dad at the family business Michael & Eagle. Stath’s hapless sister Sophie (Natasia Demetriou, Jamie’s real life sister) dreams of being a professional dancer, but holds a candle for the family’s favourite employee, nervous negotiator Al. While Stath struggles not to be outshone by Michael & Eagle’s top agent, ruthlessly ambitious Carole (Katy Wix), the company struggles against the threat of ‘Smethwicks’ – the slick, high-end estate agents next door. Other cast includes Dustin Demri-Burns (GameFace, Cardinal Burns), Tom Stourton (Siblings, Decline and Fall) and Christos Stergioglou, star of cult 2009 movie Dogtooth.