Normality Returns - London rental market returning to stability at last

Two new reports - from lettings agency Foxtons and data consultancy LonRes - show London’s rental market returning to pre-pandemic normality.

Foxtons says that in December, there was a 24 per cent month-on-month decrease in applicant demand, aligning with the usual seasonal decline in the lettings market. Overall, demand in 2023 was 12 per cent lower than in 2022, with a noticeable drop starting in July, reflecting more normalised market activity.

The year-on-year decrease of 22 per cent in new renters per new instruction indicates a shift towards a more balanced lettings market, the agency claims, characterised by increased stock and stable demand levels. 

While the number of renters per new instruction has decreased across London, figures remain high in South London with 24 renters per instruction, as well as West and East London’s 23 and 22 renters respectively.

The rise in stock levels, especially in the latter half of 2023, provided a welcome boost to the market. Notably, September and October saw stock levels 29 and 37 per cent higher than the previous year, with even December registering a 22 per cent increase over December 2022. 

Consequently, the overall stock in 2023 was 13 per cent higher than in 2022, and this trend of sustained supply is anticipated to continue into the first half of 2024.

Gareth Atkins, managing director of lettings, says: “Our belief is that the 2024 London Lettings market will be a far more traditional market than we have seen since 2020. Our expectations are for volumes to rise with seasonality over spring and summer before plateauing in Q4 offering more predictability for renters and landlords despite the General Election on the horizon.

And Sarah Tonkinson, managing director of Build to Rent, comments: “Now in the first month of 2024, the market is certainly better balanced than we have seen in recent years. It makes a strong start to what should be a pivotal year in London lettings.”

Meanwhile the pace of annual rental growth across prime London has slowed to a 29-month low according to data consultancy LonRes.

Annual rental growth in the prime London niche is now just 3.5 per cent, although rents remain a hefty 29 pr cent above their 2017-19 pre-pandemic average. 

Across prime London, new letting instructions in December increased by 2.8 per cent on an annual basis, but agreed lets fell by 11.7 per cent over the same period.

There were 60.4 per cent more properties available to let on December 31 than a year earlier, but the 2022 figures are abnormally low – a significant proportion of properties were being let without listing, so were not captured in this data. Compared to the end of 2019, currently available stock is more than 30 per cent lower.

LonRes highlights three sub-markets performing above average - St John’s Wood, Notting Hill and Marylebone - and Nick Gregori, the LonRes research head, adds: “New instructions are growing slowly and combined with the falling number of agreed lets the stock of properties to rent grew 60.4 per cent over the year, but off a very low base, while annual rental growth has slowed to 3.5 per cent.”

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