At this point, the phrase “record-high rent” has lost its shock value but not its sting.
Five years after the pandemic reshaped Britain’s housing market, tenants are now paying an average of £417 more per month than they did in 2020. That’s a 44% jump in just half a decade, while average earnings have only climbed 36%.
The arithmetic is simple, and brutal: wages have been jogging while rent has been sprinting.
London Leads, the Rest Follow
According to Rightmove, rents outside London now average £1,365 per month, up 3.9% year-on-year the smallest annual increase in five years. In the capital, though, the numbers remain dizzying: £2,712 per month on average, marking the 15th consecutive quarter of price records.
For millions, the notion of “affordable housing” has turned into an inside joke. Even those earning decently find themselves calculating which room or which postcode they can actually afford to sleep in.
A Cooling Market, But Not a Cold One
There are, at last, signs of easing pressure.
The number of rental listings has risen 15% year-on-year, with the North East up 33%.
At the same time, demand has fallen 10%, and the average property now receives 11 enquiries, down from 16 last year.
That’s still well above pre-pandemic levels, but it suggests a market slowly drifting from chaos back toward logic.
Nearly a quarter of landlords have had to reduce asking prices something unimaginable during the 2022 rental frenzy.
It now takes 25 days to rent out a property, up from 18 at the market’s peak. That’s not stagnation; it’s breathing space.
Investors Return, Not Altruists
Interestingly, the buy-to-let crowd is back.
UK Finance reports a 17% rise in buy-to-let mortgages and a 28% surge in new purchases.
For some, it’s a vote of confidence in housing as a stable investment; for others, it’s simply arithmetic savings accounts yield crumbs, while rent delivers steady returns.
But this “revival” doesn’t necessarily mean tenants will feel relief. Investors tend to follow profit, not policy. If regulation tightens or taxes climb further, the same landlords who re-enter today may quietly exit tomorrow.
The Landlord Paradox
According to Andrew Ralph of Leaders Romans Group, a “new generation” of landlords is emerging more professional, tech-savvy, and strategic. That’s good for management quality, perhaps, but not automatically for affordability.
Meanwhile, ARLA Propertymark’s president, Megan Eighteen, warns that many landlords are being squeezed by higher costs, mortgage rates, and tougher compliance rules.
She’s right but it’s hard to sympathise with complaints about squeezed margins when tenants are choosing between rent and groceries.
Britain’s housing debate has become a hall of mirrors: tenants say landlords are greedy; landlords say government is punitive; government says the market will correct itself.
It hasn’t at least not for the people paying the rent.
Beyond the Numbers: The Human Cost
A home, we like to think, is a basic right yet for many, it’s now an anxiety line on a spreadsheet.
The “cooling market” narrative might soothe economists, but for ordinary renters, it simply means paying slightly more slowly instead of much more quickly.
If the government truly wants stability, it can’t rely on private investors to solve a structural housing crisis.
Tax tweaks and interest rates won’t fix the fact that Britain has too few affordable homes, built too late, for too long.
For now, the rental market may be cooling but the human pressure underneath it remains white-hot.
Hung Bui 