Trend line better reflects rent reality

The endless rental data pumped out by letting agencies, property portals and to some extent, ourselves, has become increasingly skittish. Average rents fluctuate from week to week, even day to day - this week I've somehow managed to read that rents are both up and down.

As with so many things in this press release hungry world, nothing makes any sense.

'Statistics, damn lies and statistics' as they say.




For a more stable and trajectory of what is actually happening to rents I use the trend line from our Rent Index graphs.

The Blue trend line smooths out monthly glitches, seasonal peaks and concentrates on creating a more rounded, long term view on where rents have been.

As you can see from this recent snapshot, the BLUE trend line shows a slow steady climb in rents from 2008 to 2014.

This probably reflects the reality for most landlords, instead of the press release up/down approach that drives column inches.

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