The average rent across the UK is now £985 per calendar month, up some 2.1 per cent on four weeks ago and 1.5 per cent higher than a year ago.

That’s the headline from HomeLet’s latest rental market snapshot.

When London is excluded, the average rent in the UK is now £825.

Eleven of the 12 regions monitored show an increase in rental values between August last year and two, with two of those regions seeing an increase of more than five per cent.

The South West is the strongest, showing a yearly increase of 5.5 per cent.

However, average rents in London are down 2.1 per cent year on year; even so, the average rental value in London (£1,653) was still double that of the rest of the UK excluding London.

HomeLet chief executive Martin Totty says: “Throughout the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, private landlords must feel that they alone are shouldering much of the burden to support those tenants who have been financially impacted. Property owners are having to dig deep to find the requisite reserves of resilience and resolve to ‘stay the course’.

“The situation has been exacerbated further by the last minute and very material amendments to government policy, when landlords have shown the flexibility demanded of them to help their tenants’ bridge their contractual obligations.

“Whilst there are many stories of constructive dialogue between landlords and tenants on existing tenancy terms, it’s encouraging that rents agreed on new tenancies in August, in every region outside London, are up on the same month last year and, in almost all regions, ahead of where they were only one month previously. 

“London may be experiencing a correction of sorts in supply versus demand and the sharp reversal of price growth from positive four per cent pre-Covid to negative two per cent now, represents a significant swing.

“Elsewhere, average monthly rents are edging up on both a monthly basis and also on a long-term smoothed trend which removes the month on month fluctuations to provide a clearer trend line over time. 

“Outside the capital, the rental sector still appears to offer sound fundamentals and, for committed landlords able to manage through the current challenges, having access to a wide range of financial protection solutions via professional letting agents, there are some bright spots to add into the mix.”