Massive long-term slump in available rental stock

New figures show the scale of the rental supply slump in recent years.

The respected Home website, which produces a monthly lettings and sales market snapshot, says that across Britain in August 2019, 96,000 properties were available for rent: fast forward to August 2024 and the figure is just 66,000, representing a drop of 31%. 

As a consequence, rents have risen progressively but Home believes the current rate of rental growth across the country as a whole is being dragged down by the particularly sluggish performance of London.

The website says the annualised national growth figure for asking rents is just 1.1%. 

While Wales continues to lead the regional growth table, followed by the South West, with rises of 14.5% and 11.7% respectively year-on-year. Yorkshire and the North East continue also show double-digit annualised growth. 

Meanwhile, the year-on-year decline in Greater London rents is now -1.2%. In the capital the boroughs of Bexley and Haringey indicate the worst declines in asking rents with annualised rental falls of 16.6% and 9.4% respectively. The East and West Midlands also show falls (-2.8% and -0.8% respectively). 

On the sales side of the market, asking prices rose by 0.2% during the last month across England and Wales - the seventh consecutive monthly rise - and are now up 1.2% compared to August 2023.

Prices increased again in Wales, Scotland and all English regions except the North West and South East where they remain unchanged.

The unsold sales stock count for England and Wales rose again over the last month to reach a 10-year high for August.  Nearly 6,000 properties were added to agents’ portfolios, taking the current total of unsold stock to 494,837.