Good news for everyone except landords: renting in London actually got cheaper this year.
Flatmate-finding site SpareRoom analysed over 400,000 listings on their site for their Quarterly Rental Index, and discovered the average rent for a double bedroom in the capital dropped by 2% on average this year. That’s a cut from £741 to £725, potentially saving Lucy Q. Londoner £192 a year. [Header photo by @roshani.takes.london.]
With rents across the rest of the UK actually rising by 3% this year, the huge regional rental gap has narrowed a tiny bit – but renting in London is still way more expensive than anywhere else, and on average we’re all paying an extra £3,228 a year to live here, versus the UK average. In fact, the last few months have seen a 1,000% increase in Londoners searching for rooms in Glasgow, and 223% more for Manchester.
But rent changes haven’t been entirely equal across the capital…
Notable drops were recorded in Chelsea (-10%) and Clapham (-8%) in southwest London, Highgate and New Southgate (both -7%) in the north, and Canary Wharf (-5%) and Bethnal Green (-5%) in the east, and Dulwich Village in the south.
Biggest rent decreases this year:
Beating the trend with some serious increases were a mix of dead-central neighbourhoods like Holborn (14%), Westminster (+6%) and Aldgate (+5%); laidback southern suburbs like Mortlake (+6%), East Dulwich (+6%), Herne Hill, Brockley and Forest Hill (all +5%) and the north-eastern nirvanas of Wood Green and South Woodford (both +5%).
The biggest rent rises this year:
Rents dropped in all parts of London except the central WC and EC zones, where rents jumped by 6% and 3% respectively, perhaps because of all the wildly expensive flat conversions and towers popping up hither and thither.
London’s cheapest and choicest neighbourhoods haven’t seen too much turmoil, but in case you were wondering…
