Soaring rent costs contribute to increased inflation for tenants. – TNT

The latest House Costs Indices (HCI) report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that, by tenure type, private renter households had the highest annual inflation rate of 3.6% in March 2025, reflecting rising private rental payments.

This was followed by social and other renter households, which had a 3% inflation rate in the year to March 2025.

Outright owner occupiers experienced the lowest annual inflation rate of all tenure types, at 1.8% in the year to March 2025; mortgagor households had the next lowest (2.8%).

Private rental costs contributed 2.2 percentage points to the annual rate for private renter households. Social and other rental payments contributed 1.7 percentage points to the annual rate for social and other renter households.

However, when looking at household costs over a longer time, the ONS figures show that private renters had the lowest cumulative HCI inflation rate over the past five years at 26.6%. This is followed by outright owner occupiers at 27.7%, social and other renters at 29.8%, and mortgagor households at 32.1%.

Responding to the figures, Angharad Trueman, ARLA Propertymark president, commented: “With private rents seeing their highest annual inflation rate in March 2025, it remains more vital than ever the UK government and the devolved administrations take a wide angle view regarding taxes impacting the private rental sector and look at ways to encourage and support new investment for the long term. 

“Currently such factors are sadly contributing towards driving up costs and reducing the supply in some areas for rental properties,” Trueman added.