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How the Cost of Renting a Room Varies across London
This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
A growing number of young professionals and students are choosing to house share, which is driving up the average cost of renting a room in London, according to new research by Ideal Flatmate.
Data from the room share platform shows that the cost of renting a single room in the capital has already increased by an average of 2% in 2019 so far, having jumped by 13% between 2017-18.
In 2017, the average price of a room listed to rent on Ideal Flatmate was £781 per month. This rose by 13% to £855 in 2018. With a continued lack of suitable stock and a decline in buy-to-let investors, this figure has already climbed to £902 a month in 2019.
Westminster is currently the most expensive borough to rent a room, at an average of £1,045 per month, followed by Camden, at £999.
Looking on a more granular level, Nine Elms tops the table, with an average monthly rent of £2,123 a month.
Other areas to see some of the highest rents for a single room are: Covent Garden, Upper Clapton, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Church End, Bayswater, St James’s, North Finchley and Millbank, all at £1,200 per month or above.
North Woolwich was identified as the cheapest area to rent a room, at just £350 a month, with Abbey Wood, Manor Park, Hither Green and West Norwood also some of the lowest.
Tom Gatzen, the Co-Founder of Ideal Flatmate, comments: “Despite room sharing remaining the most affordable way of finding a place to live in London, it, too, is seeing prices increase, as the capital’s rental market continues to strain under the pressure of a supply and demand imbalance.
“We’re currently seeing the price of room rentals in London increase at a rate of at least 1% a month on average, which is pretty significant for those already struggling to afford the overall cost of living in the capital.”
He believes: “This cost increase has largely been driven by a reduction in the number of landlords and letting agents with rooms to rent, as a result of the Stamp Duty shake-up, changes to tax thresholdsand the impending ban on letting fees. Unless more is done to address this, we will continue to see the cost of renting lift across the board, with the capital’s tenants ultimately the ones paying the price.”
Despite the cost of renting a room rising across the capital, living in a house share could help tenants get onto the property ladder sooner, compared to renting a one-bedroom apartment.
