I have just been having a look at an alternative rental property, as our contract runs out in feb and me and the missus have decided to look for something else, The apartment we live in is top grade but the area has alot to be desired! We are both fed up with chavs and idiots shouting around in the early hours in the morning (not just friday and saturday nite)!
I am in shock, the rental prices in the last few months have risen.....dramatically!
Why is this happening? Landlords passing on rate rises etc is the obvious answer but are people really paying these crazy prices?
The town im talking about is Kettering and i am now seeing apartments at £600+, which were previously less than £525, 2 bedroom modern rabbit hutch houses that were £475 now £525 or £550, 2/3 bedroom old terrace house in car crime ridden roads that were £500 now £550+!
I dont understand, Kettering is a crap town, the high street is starting to look like a shanty town with all the unoccupied outlets!!
When is this nonsense going to stop.......what do we do? We cant BUY a house and its getting to the stage that we cant RENT a house, and theres no chance of COUNCIL property so where do we go??
I must admit im starting to get really fed up with the property game whether it be buying or renting, estate and letting agents are so rude and unhelpful and i really am fed up! the lies that i have been fed by the last letting agent is unbelivable and i have investigated and there is nothing i can do about it!

Anyways, rant over and i apologise for my it, i have just finally had enough of this diseased country!

Bottom line is it has become really expensive to put a roof over you head in the UK. You can pay the full price (buy), have a land lord partly subsidise you ( rent) or have the tax payers heavily subsidise you ( get a council house) and the last option should really just be a safety net.
What is supply like? A quick peek at rightmove shows almost 50 2 bed places for rent between 400 and 500. I have no idea on the size of Kettering but that sounds a reasonable pool and sugests it is just asking prices going up. I just rented a house in wales for 15% below the initial asking and most others were open for discussion, flats should be softer still.
If there are plenty of properties available start making low offers. If there is actually a short supply then of course rents will go up.

Compared to the asking price that the LL may have paid the yields are terrible so it is not unreasonable to for rents to go up a bit if it can be supported. They are not passing on rate rises, that would imply that up until now they have been renting it at below the market rate. It is up to them to try to get as much money as they possibly can all the time but a rate rise doesn't affect your average renters financial situation so should not upset the market rate.
You can ask for a raise, work overtime or look for a better paying job but that is about it in the short term. House prices will some down but unless supply changes radically rents will stay around what people are able to pay.

It ain't necessarily so! Proper council houses were paid for decades ago. The rents are not that low and more than cover the running costs of the properties. Councils actually profit from non-benefit-claimants who live in traditional council accommodation.


p-o-p

There is probably some local effect going on - nationally rents are going the same way as house prices and interest rates - down. I would suggest you offer someone 500.

There are other alternatives :

1) Find some like minded people and rent a house together - often cheaper than a flat, especially if it's a really big, old house with lots of rooms
2) Check your area for housing associations and housing co-ops
3) Think outside the 'bricks and mortar' concept - caravan / motorhome / boat
4) Go for the underground approach and check out the idea of being a squatter
5) look for 'house sitter' options

(I've personally used the shared house, boat and motorhome options in the past...)

Treat advertised rents as 'asking prices' then put in your 'offer'

This may be just wishful thinking on behalf of landlords who have large mortages to service. How many of these properties are there if you have a large choice just offer the amount you think you should pay youll get a taker as any money is better than no money.

Points being missed here lads, im not saying i cant afford high rents, im saying why are rents rising and are people that stupied to pay high rents?
The majority on here rent i guess, so what do you all think, are you willing to pay a 10% increase in rents?
There are plenty of flats and houses in Kettering and im sure i prob would get a reduced offer excepted but my point is, that im fed up with the greed that is pushing property, especially the agents who lie constantly to sell, rent, secure deals!
The flats between £400 and £500 would be horrible areas etc, i know i can take one of these but a couple of months ago i could get a 2 bed in a nice area for £500 now its going to cost me £550+!
So when is the rent inflation going to stop, my guess is when idiots stop agreeing to pay higher rents in the risk of "losing out"!
We talk about idiots buying overpriced homes because they dont want to miss the boat, but now i can see the same happening with rents!
Its all aload of sillyness and if we carry on with it then we will be cutting out own throats and each others that are in the priced out boat!

Out of interest in did a quick search in my preferred area (S20, S21 in Sheffield). I haven't searched for rental properties for a while but generally flats would be between £450 and £550 a month, semi's at around £500-600. Detached houses usually started at around £595 (if you were lucky). These are general prices, taken from memory (probably last did a search in the late Spring).

Anyhoo, this is what my search turned up:

3 bed detached £595 [link]

2 bedroom detached bungalow £495 [link]

1 bed ground floor flat £425 [link]

2 bed flat £450 [link]

So not much change that I can see, except perhaps prices being slightly more reasonable.

Offer £500 and see what gives.

There are always going to be variations according to the area and the type of property; so in that sense anecdotes probably aren't going to give us a true sense of the overall picture.

I suspect people are not stupidly paying high rents but there will always be a few. For the system to work though the landlords need to be "greedy" and get the highest rent the market will support. they are asking higher prices. You could offer 250 on the 40 or so flats and lower the offering price :-)

If the LL put the rent up above threaten to move out. My last LL put the rent up 25% with no justification. As it was so far out of wack with the rest of the rents that was actually illegal in Ireland but I would have had to go through all kinds of tribulal boards to prove it and would have ended up renting of someone I despised so I moved elsewhere and the property was vacant for months until they lowererd the rent ( and I still don't know what they actually got.)
At the same time, feb 07 there was a spike in asking rents in Ireland as there was a claimed shortage and the daft rental report ( daft is like rightmove) was hypeing it for all it was worth in a bid to save the investor market.
If you look at the availability figures for that period you can see just how short lived it was.
Graphs of rental and purchase availability for Ireland
Needless to say it didn't work and things came back down to where they had been.

People don't get locked into rents and you can always negociate rent reductions if you think prices have since dropped, they don't have to take it but then you can always move. No one has any ilusions about it being a asset vs a liability so prices are only ever going to represent what it is worth to live in it; it might be high but that is just the way it is, it is not a bubble.

Well rents seem to be soaring in Essex as well - I'm not sure if it due to all these repossessions going on (I attended my landlord's property repossession hearing today) or landlords trying to balance the books.

In general though property doesn't seem to be staying vacant for often, and small 1 bed places are snapped up in a few days.

I've been looking for somewhere to rent (in Colchester) and in general I have to compliment the letting agencies on the rental valuations they have assigned to properties - I have found that I can tell what the interior of a place is going to be like just by looking at the amount of rent they are charging.

This country is ludicrously expensive though - I went on holiday to Tokyo and was surprised by how cheap many things were (e.g. food, travel, rents) compared to the UK.

Well I've just signed for a 3bed semi new build in Norwich for £650pm down from its asking price of £795 (19% drop) and cheaper than the existing 3bed I'm in at the moment not forgetting its a bigger house.

In my experience rents are falling just look for the rentals that are also for sale and you have a desperate landlord. Mine had it advertised with 3 agents plus 1 letting agent since before the summer because there isn't a shortage in Norwich. I checked how much the property cost and I cant even get an IO mortgage close to what I'm paying a month so the LL is subsiding my living by nearly a few hundred quid a month as well.

Some rental properties in Norwich look like they are homes the LL has tried to sell but cant so just proceeded to move onto a new property and rent out their existing house. These people are forced into renting and dont have a clue based on what I've seen. In most cases they have moved out with no thought to decorate the house in neutral colors in the main, many dont comply with current regulations and most Letting Agents turn a blind eye to this unless challenged about the condition of some properties by potential tenants.


Other things you can do is look at houses for sale and approach buyer and say you are interested in the house but want to rent it for 6months to see if its ok. Desperate sellers will do anything and so you can find suitable properties that way if you dont mind the possibility of moving after 6months but in 6months selling prices will have dropped even more and so will rents so they might be happy to have you stay on...

Builders and new builds are also renting stock out they cant sell as well because empty developments are harder to sell than ones that are populated and vibrant.

Think it depends on the place and the town.

I'm in a small town in Bucks - and yes rentals are up on last year £25 on average.

Got turfed out again for 6th LL in a row selling within 1 year's rental.

But on top of that agency fees are up too, and extra costs to agencies have gone up (references from a previous agent, checkout fees) - so not just rental amounts.

In a small town - because so many are unable to buy - one beds tend to go quickly too. Plus we suffer the "close to London" syndrome - but it's working in reverse here as many uni grads have elected to work locally and stay at home. In the past these grads would have gone to London to make their way in the world - now they might commute but those I've spoken to "can't be bothered" as they won't end up with much more at the end of the day than living at home and working locally for a few years to clear their debts and pay for the driving licence and first car.

Plus many middlers - who would also have risked commuting to London have said the same - financially, it's doesn't make sense to pay for the travel tickets - when they would not get that much more in salary in London for the hassle. Rather surprisingly - I work in IT!!!

Then there's the change in attitude towards work-life balance - and the amount that it costs for child care - many of the guys I work with would have risked going to London to work for a better career - but now they are early 30s with young kids - and it's not cost effective as they get family credits to take account of wife not working - and child care costs so much so the new wives with kids are looking at doing "occasional" freelance franchise work - Ann Summers and variations of!!!

There's a huge shift in the air - that wasn't previously there ... and not really mentioned elsewhere - or rather I've not heard it.

Anyone else?

Hi all

Yes in my opinion rents are rising at a ridiculous rate. We are just about to move as our landlord went bust in the summer and the bank are trying to sell the property (been under offer for about 5 months!).

When we first moved to our current area (acton/shepherds bush borders)in 2004 a 2 bed would cost you just over a £1000pm now in the exactly same area and for the same types of properties the rents are being advertised starting at £1300pm. We decided to try to get something in december as we thought we could get a deal, we were right. Our property was advertised for £1300 we had an offer accepted reluctantly for £1140 that is still more than £100 over what we are currently paying.

These houses are not palaces, or designer homes just ordinary flats with 10 year old bathrooms and kitchens in it is ridiculous, and if I wanted to buy one of these in our street the asking prices start at £330,000. An amount my partner and I will never afford.

Something needs to be done about rent in london for ordinary people who do work (don't qualify for benefit) who maybe don't have degrees (we do by the way)and so it it harder for them to earn £25K plus a year and are bringing up children - how do those types of people afford somewhere half decent to live.

Sorry but I find it crazy...and yeah we have thought about moving further out of london but for any decrease in rent it is cancelled out by the increase in travel costs.

Right I think I will climb down from my soapbox now!!!

That's precisely the reason I've never worked in London since leaving home and never will unless the cost of living there falls off a cliff or I have no choice. In the 14 years since I left home I've lived and worked in Exeter (three years), Aarhus, Denmark (four) and now Yorkshire (seven). Jobs in London and the south-east have come up that would represent a significant career progression, but I reckon my salary would have to at least double for me not to have to take a big hit in my standard of living there ... so I've simply not applied.

I'm surprised we're not hearing problems about middle-income professionals staying away from London and therefore creating economic problems, e.g. shortage of infrastructure-critical public sector workers (nurses, engineers etc.). I'm sure these jobs aren't all being taken by immigrants.

I've found that in Leeds rentals are falling, and have been for years.

I KNOW that people are holding off from house buying, at least in my area. If this is the case nationally then they are instead probably adding to the renters pool everywhere.

In areas that have historical spare housing stock, such as the North and the regions, then I would expect the housing stock can absorb the extra rental demand due to intrinsic elastic supply. In the south where such an intrinsic oversupply may be less prevalent, then the increase in numbers of renters may have an actual effect on the market rental price, pushing it up.

Just an idea anyway.

We were talking about coming back to the UK but after having a look at the rental prices we are thinking again, can't believe it's gone this far and TBH we want no part of it.
Dunno how ppl in the UK get by anymore.... I thought Florida was getting expensive until we looked back at the UK.

If we ever come back it'll be when it gets cheaper or wages rise enough to cover the madness else EU here we come

Edited to make sense after lots of beer

I rented a 2 bedroom flat in SE London 12 years ago for £900pcm. I've just taken a look now and an almost identical flat is on for £950pcm.

One thing that is seldom mentioned about the housing boom that has just happened over the past 10 years is the positive effect it as had on the rental market. As somebody who likes renting because of the flexibility it offers and the reduced responsibility I am quite heartily toasting the house price boom. In the past ten years rents have remained static and in some instances decreased whilst at the same time the choice of rental property has increased along with the quality. So now in Brighton I can go on Rightmove and I have just under 300 2 bedroom flats available and I know most will be open to negotitation and if they aren't then I wont rent them. I can rent new build apartments, completely untouched, move in there and enjoy living in a spanking new place for a year and then when it starts to get a bit tawdry and the value has dropped 20% because it doesnt have that new smell anymore I just go out and rent another one.

The reason rents in Kettering have gone up is more to do with the demographics and the fact that people are using it as a commuter town for London. BUT and it is a big but you are talking about asking prices for rent and usually you can ask for 10-20% reductions. These shifts are usually caused by landlords actually just trying to break even but screw the bas$ards, let em pay for their greed. I am currently renting from a landlord who is subsidizing me by about £400pcm. It is great being a renter at the moment so enjoy it and just sit back and observe the chavs and idiots who have fallen for the buying mantra pumped out by the media. I am giving it another 5 years and then I reckon prices will decline enough to make sense buying again i:e when your repayment mortagage is less than the rental value.

As for rents going up, it may sometimes look that way but there are far too many amateur BTL landlords in desperate situations. We dont have the old eighties and ninties situation were landlords could sit on voids for months on end. These guys will take anything after a few void months just to contribute towards their terrible investment costs. As a renter lap it all up and enjoy it. If you see a 5 bed house on for £1600pcm offer £1000pcm. I have done this a few times and it as actually worked ;o)

In 2000 I moved to Oxford, do not live there anymore but still keep a close eye on the property market there.

When I first moved there, the following properties in Merrivale Square had just been built by Berkley Homes. Many were BTL. Just had a look at two examples and the rents have hardly shifted and show that at best rents have risen by only a total of 6- 8 % in seven years!

This one is currently on at an asking price of £1,225 p.c.m and in 2000 similar was on at £1,150 p.cm asking.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-182...8&tr_t=rent

This one is currently on at an asking price of £1,350 p.c.m and in 2000 similar was on at £1,250 p.cm asking.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-165...7&tr_t=rent

Both of these properties are quite nice and in a good area but the problem is that Berkley Homes have continued to build many more houses/flats in the area near the canal and rents have just not risen. Other older properties in the area have also been upgraded and split into flats which has also added downward pressure to rental prices.

Of course capital values have rocketed so rental yields have plummeted.

end of the day rent is a requirement of living so people will be paying these prices, like food and fuel rises wont result in a drop of demand.

Depends where you live, I live in the north beds / south cambs border and rents have not changed for 5 years...

Don't believe all that you read in the Sun

nothing to do with the sun (I dont read newspapers) but purely on experience and common sense.

During recessions essentials rise in price such as food rent and fuel cost. I have noticed rents have escalated during the last 1-2 years of this so called housing boom which to me is a sign that there is a housing price crash on the way as rents tend to rise during crashes and stagnate during booms.

Rubbish it all depends when the owners purchased the house. If you live in a town where the market has been flooded with new builds ( a university town is a good example) then yes. Though anyone with 'common sense' would not rent in one of these areas.

Recession I don't think so, people with real jobs (excluding publis sector brownites, estate agents & hair dressers) will be largely unaffected by the economic problems

many people cant pick and choose tho they have to live an an area or/and have to find somewhere to live fast or be homeless, these are big factors that drive rent prices.

Experience?

during early 90s house crash rents went skyward
during late 90s and early 2000s rents stagnant minimal increases if any
last 2 years rents increasing again

some areas will break the trend obviously.

When repossions start accelerating there will be increasingly number of people in the situation of agree rent now or be homeless tommorow.

I chose to move further away from london to the point of where I live today we've seen no rental increase for 3 years.

And do you think the government will not act if repo's rise dramatically ?

Just renegotiated my rent after 4 years without a rise.
They've played hardball and under pressure I've acquiesced. Up £5 a month!

"Prime" Brum (stop sniggering at the back) and rents aren't going anywhere. In actual fact my feeling compared with 4 years ago is that rents are weakening. Certainly a lot more choice around.

I lived in Wilmslow 5 years ago and rented a two bed newish house with a mate for £600 pcm (knocked 'em down from £650) Just moved back from London and houses on the same estate are being advertised at £600pcm - not exactly flying up round here

Advised one of my staff to try and knock down LL on a house near Cambridge. He got price down from £650 to £625. Not as much as I thought but £25 a month not to be sniffed at.

the increases are mainly in bedsits and 1 bed flats from what I have noticed. You guys are in houses.

However I reckon when things start going worse houses will also see an increase. In terms of negotiating rent my landlord wouldnt budge and was willing to try his luck with new tenants when I asked for a rent increase to not happen.

I totally agree and sympathise with everyone trapped in the "can't buy, can hardly afford to rent" loop. My husband and I are currently looking to rent in Cambridgeshire, and the rents are in my opinion astronomical. Greedy landlords trying to cover all their expenses, means you can't afford to save for a deposit to buy a house, and so the endless cycle continues, creating an underclass of middle aged life-renters. How depressing.

Unless you go for a rabbit hutch without a garage, then you're looking at at least £900 PCM before you find anything with any space. We're getting older and have more "stuff" to put in a house, in preparation for the heady days when we may eventually own our own home, so renting a 1 bedroomed hut is less desirable, plus you can't have friends over to stay. Anywhere close to amenities is pricier still, so you are forced to live in "the sticks" and commute long distances by car, for which you are then taxed to the hilt by Brown's hit-men.

I totally agree that renters should always put in an offer and not simply accept the asking price. Also watch out for any properties that are clearly only in the rental market while the landlord is trying to sell. Do you really want your life disrupted for the next 6 months by prospective viewers trailing around and invading your privacy. Not me! I would stay well away from this type of rental. Although with the property market the way it is in the UK, the chances are you could put up with much longer than 6 months of viewing. In exchange I would negotiate a much lower rent due to the potantial invasion of privacy and calls from whining estate agents...

With all due respect, do you expect a landlord to charge a rent which DOESN'T cover their expenses?! Why should a LL subsidise you? I accept that in many cases today LLs do end up subsidising their tenants, but to expect it as of right seems a bit rich!