Average asking rents exceed £1,000 as city centres start to recover

Asking prices for rents outside London have topped £1,000 per month on average for the first time, according to a property website.

Rightmove said asking rents are starting to recover in city centres across Britain as more people plan a city move ahead of more parts of the economy opening up.

Its quarterly rental trends tracker is based on more than 470,000 properties.

Excluding London, the average rental price being asked in the second quarter of this year was £1,007, up from £982 in the first quarter.

At the start of the year, Rightmove had reported a flood of rental properties entering the market as many tenants chose to move out of cities during the coronavirus pandemic.

The typical time it is taking for a letting agent to find a tenant for a property is now at a record low of 21 days, Rightmove said.

Rightmove’s director of property data Tim Bannister said: “At the start of this year the impact that tenants leaving cities had on rents was clear to see, but with restrictions continuing to lift we’re seeing signs of the city centre comeback.

“As businesses settle into a more structured balance between home and office time, we expect this to continue for the rest of the year.”

Rob Cuffe, director at Philip James in Manchester, said: “Since lockdown we’re continuing to see an increase in demand for properties with outdoor spaces such as balconies or terraces.

“Currently two bed city centre apartments are achieving rents in excess of £1,200 in the popular developments, and any with outside space are the most sought after. We’re letting all of our properties in an average of just 10 days.”