Property market expert Kate Faulkner says individual lettings market indices suggesting rents are rising are not borne out by longer-term trends which show it as static over the past year.
Faulkner has tracked monthly rental indices from Homelet, LSL and Belvoir and says that although some show major monthly changes, the 12-month trend tells a different story.
What we know from working with rental trends is rents rise towards spring, then typically drop back towards the end of the year. And this year isn't much different she says.
Faulkner believes that on a longer-term analysis, Homelet's figures show a rough three per cent annual average rent rise over recent years while LSL's suggest a 2.8 per cent annual rise. In other words rents have either stayed the same or risen in line with inflation which, on average since 2000, has run at just over three per cent per year she claims.
Belvoir tends to show a very consistent picture throughout the year. This may be as data is taken from established offices trading consistently since 2008 and represents areas such as Scotland where rents have been stable, if not showing some slight falls she says.
Faulkner's analysis of Belvoir figures show rents have actually stayed roughly the same for many years. Since 2009 they have fluctuated from £674 per month to £687 per month - just a £13 difference over a four year period.
This is roughly in line with Government data from the Office of National Statistics which shows on average rents have increased in England by one per cent annually for the last 10 years.
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