Newly released data from Rightmove found that the average asking rent in suburban areas across Great Britain is now £1,041 per calendar month, up from £940 pcm in February 2020. In rural areas, rents have jumped from £1,141 pcm to £1,264 pcm now. Urban rents are up by just £25 over the same time period, from £1,347 to £1,372 pcm.
A sustained desire from renters for more space outside of cities has led to increased demand for suburban properties, contributing to the number of available homes to rent in the suburbs dropping by 45% compared to before the pandemic, and down 61% in rural areas.
This means more competition amongst tenants for the properties available, with tenant demand per rental property available in the suburbs rising by 155% compared to pre-pandemic levels, and soaring 224% in rural locations.
The analysis of over 300,000 rental listings compares tenant demand and available rental stock across Great Britain in August 2021 with February 2020, to measure the impact of the pandemic on tenant behaviour and rental availability.
Although tenant demand in urban areas is also rising, there are more properties available to choose from.
Of all the available rental properties on Rightmove, 64% of them are now in urban locations, a jump up from 48% pre-pandemic. The proportion of available properties that are in the suburbs has dropped from 46% to 33%, while rural areas have declined from 6% to 3%.
Competition for available rental properties has also increased in urban areas compared to before the pandemic, though significantly less than suburban and rural areas (+82%).
All of this has led to rural and suburban rental properties flying out the door, with the average rental property in rural locations finding a tenant 18 days more quickly than before the pandemic, suburban properties finding a tenant two weeks more quickly, and urban rentals finding a tenant five days faster.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s Director of Property Data comments: “A notable impact of the pandemic on the rental market has been the change in the distribution of available properties between urban and suburban areas. While the proportion of homes available to rent in urban and suburban areas remained steady in the years leading up to the pandemic, the data shows a significant change in 2020 as more renters looked to the suburbs. A desire to relocate and move to a home with more space has meant that demand has greatly outstripped supply in these areas and also in rural locations, which in turn is propping up asking rents.
"Now that more people are returning to offices at least part of the week, we’d expect to see greater demand for urban rentals over the coming months as more people need to be closer to work. However, the scale of change we’ve seen over the course of the pandemic means this shift isn’t going to happen overnight, and it will be interesting to continue to monitor the lasting impacts of the pandemic on demand in the rental market for the rest of the year.”
