The average monthly rent outside of London this week reached a new high of £1,278 according to real estate platform Rightmove, as the number of people enquiring about each listing hit 25.
UK house prices have fallen from the all-time highs seen late last year, but remain farther beyond the reach of typical earnings than ever before. Mortgages remain prohibitively expensive for many.
Energy bill surges may well have worsened the housing crisis, but insufficient supply has long been highlighted as the root cause.
On the one hand, this comes down to meeting the Conservative Manifesto 2019 pledge to build 300,000 new homes a year. Data show just 213,000 were completed in 2022.
On the other, calls to address the fact that 676,000 properties in England alone sit unoccupied long-term are growing ever louder.
This figure comes from research conducted by property purchasing specialist House Buyer Bureau, which also estimated the total value of disused dwellings to be £212billion.
The firm’s managing director, Chris Hodgkinson, commented: “The UK has long struggled to supply enough properties for renters and aspiring buyers, and one factor that doesn’t help is that hundreds of thousands of homes are left picking up dust.”
Across the country, 2.7 percent of the housing stock was found to be out of use in this way, but this share rises to 3.3 percent in the North East – the worst regional offender.
In particular, Liverpool was found to have the highest proportion of rental stock lying vacant, with 10,769 vacant dwellings out of a total 229,863 (4.7 percent). After the City of London, North East neighbours Burnley and Blackpool had the highest empty property rates.
Greater London came at the opposite end of the spectrum, making use of all but 2.4 percent of dwellings. Staggeringly high property values in the capital mean a handful of its most desirable boroughs are responsible for the highest values of empty homes: Kensington and Chelsea (£4.3billion), Camden (£3.7billion) and Barnet £2.7billion).
England’s Empty Homes Programme – ushered in by the coalition Government in 2012 – once provided social landlords and housing groups with funds to bring empty housing back into use. After the Conservatives’ 2015 outright election victory, the programme was scrapped.
Mr Hodgkinson added: “To improve the issue of vacant properties the government could sink money into another empty homes scheme, or do more to tax those owners who fail to rent out or use their homes.
“It’s also fair to assume that with the continued high cost of living and borrowing, coupled with a cooling property market where prices are concerned, we could well see more properties become vacant as the nation’s landlords continue to exit the sector in order to balance their books.”
House prices are now plummeting – down £14,500 on last September according to Nationwide – as markets hint at a rush to downsize.
Upward pressure on rents, however, is yet to subside, climbing 12.1 percent outside of the capital over the past year. Rightmove says it will continue to be “very difficult” for tenants going forward.
