Rents across England and Wales are rising at their fastest rate since last autumn, reaching an average of £793, new figures show.
According to the latest Buy-to-Let Index from Your Move and Reeds Rains, rents are up 2.4% higher than at the same point last year – an extra £19 every month for the average tenant.
This comes on the back of what was previously a relatively subdued month, when rents saw no change between February and March 2016.
Adrian Gill, director of lettings agents Your Move and Reeds Rains, said: “But very little has changed in terms of the supply of homes to let. So for many tenants, it’s likely that a large proportion of any earnings growth is swallowed up by higher rents.
“And the government hasn’t helped by imposing an extra bill that someone will have to pay on top of this – in the form of the recent stamp duty surcharge. To a large extent it’s likely that penalty will be shouldered by those tenants looking for homes to rent, due only to the fundamentals of supply and demand in the British housing market.”
Rental markets in the East Midlands, West Midlands and East of England have never seen rents higher.
Rents in the East of England set a new all-time record of £848 in April, following a 4.8% rise over the last year.
Average rents in the West Midlands were up 6.2% on last year to break through the £600 per month barrier.
Leading England and Wales by some distance, property to rent in the East Midlands has seen annual rents rise 8.5% to a new all-time record of £616.
Rents in London have risen 2% in the past year to reach a new high of £1,229.
The average landlord in England and Wales has seen a return of £19,538 over the last twelve months, before any deductions such as property maintenance and mortgage payments. Of this, the average capital gain contributed £10,815 while rental income made up £8,723 over the twelve months to April.
Gill said: “There is a powerful trend underpinning the affordability of renting for a large majority of Britain’s tenants, but there are also serious shortages of homes to let in all the same places that people want to live.
“Unless landlords are allowed to respond by investing in new homes then supply will not quite ever be able to keep up. This is the mechanism that very soon could demonstrate the misguided nature of the latest targeting of landlords from the UK authorities. Tenants will always lose out if the bottom line is a shortage of flats to rent or houses to rent in local markets.”
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