The report’s residential lettings section reveals that although prospective tenant numbers decreased slightly, this can be attributed to seasonal fluctuations.
It has had little effect on the continuing supply-demand imbalance, as the level of supply is still far below the amount needed to match the level of new applicants registered at the member branches.
This undersupply is best demonstrated by comparing the number of rental properties on the market with the amount of rental applicants.
The average number of new prospective renters registering at each branch per the number of properties available has remained very high. This figure has stayed between 10 and 11 prospective tenants per property during July, August, and September this year.
This imbalance continues to exert pressure on rents, and 52% of surveyed members for the report indicated that rents had risen in their branch during September. 42% answered that rents had stayed the same, and just 4% reported a fall, and 2% responded that they didn’t know. This report has confirmed what we already knew, that rents across the UK have been increasing at a brisk rate never seen before.
Void periods have increased marginally from 2.3 weeks the previous month to 2.6 weeks in September, but Propertymark’s Housing Report notes that this is in line with the 5-year average and ‘within normal parameters’.
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