Rightmove sees increasing rental supply

The property portal has seen an increase of 12% in the number of available rental properties on its books.

The increase in supply is seen as the reason for the slowing rental growth; with asking rents now just 1.8% up over this time last year.

This relative abundance of rental property have lead to increased letting periods, up 10% over the year, with properties in London taking on average 20% longer to secure a tenant.

Rightmove’s Sam Mitchell comments: 

“The supply boost following last year’s buy-to-let frenzy in the first few months of the year has continued through to 2017, introducing more competition in the market for letting agents trying to secure suitable tenants for their landlords’ properties. This extra choice for tenants in many areas has inevitably led to properties taking longer to let than this time last year. However, agents are still reporting that well-priced properties in popular areas are letting quickly. The new tax changes that started to phase in from this month may also lead to some landlord’s selling off properties and the extra stamp duty on buy-to-lets may deter some landlords from expanding their portfolios, so now seems to be the right time for tenants who want to have more choice to look around. Agents’ properties need to stand out even more than before, so carefully considering how your property is presented is really important. Now might be the right time to encourage landlords to give the place a lick of paint or some new furniture to give them the edge to help secure the right tenant.”

What's happened in the #rentalmarket in Q1? Find out in our latest tracker: https://t.co/02lLMUv3UY #news #property pic.twitter.com/VemWwp8pBf

— Rightmove (@rightmove) April 10, 2017

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