Beth Holloway seems like the ideal tenant. The 23-year-old civil servant has a stable job, good references and earns a decent salary. And she doesn’t smoke or have pets, factors that are often a disadvantage in a very competitive market.
But after three months of looking for flats in London, with hundreds of inquiries to agencies, two dozen visits and 10 offers on properties, she says she can’t take it anymore. Every time she and the friend she had planned to live with put an offer on a property, someone else outbid them. “We have offered over £200 [the listed price] and I didn’t get it because someone else offered it six months in advance. I’ve heard of people offering £500 or £600 or offering to pay a year up front in cash,” he said.
On other occasions, she has arrived at scheduled visits to find 15 people in line in front of her. Or worse, you’ve called to try a viewing and been told the property is already gone, even though it was posted online just minutes earlier. “We’ve reached breaking point,” Holloway said. “Everyone said, ‘Renting in London is going to be difficult’, and I said, ‘Yeah, OK’. But I didn’t realize how bad it was. It’s absolutely crazy.”
Holloway is one of thousands of people caught in what campaigners call the “cost of rent crisis”. High demand and a lack of housing supply have led landlords and agencies to raise rents to record levels at a time when rising energy prices and rising inflation mean millions of people already struggle to keep up with bills.
‘I didn’t realize how bad rent was in London’: civil servant Beth Holloway, 23, pictured at her graduation.
Data from Rightmove shows that rents in Britain have reached record highs, rising by more than 20% year-on-year in some areas such as Manchester and 15.8% in London. Tenants report that landlords are increasing their rents by up to £700 a month, forcing them out. Others who moved out of their flats say they checked property sites days later to see their old homes being resold at twice their original price.
A survey by PropertyMark, a membership organization for estate agents, found letting agents received an average of 127 new applications per branch in July, but only had 11 properties available to let. A record 82% reported month-on-month rate increases.
For those trying to find a place to live, the competition is fierce. Holloway, who works in London and needs to live in or near the capital, found that flat-hunting became a “part-time job” in addition to her actual full-time role. Every day, he spent hours touring property sites and arranging tours during lunch breaks and after work, as well as receiving a stream of alerts notifying him of new properties.
“It’s very mentally draining. You’re constantly on the sidelines,” he said. “Even when you’re trying to focus on work, you get email alerts about new properties or a viewing being cancelled.”
Despite having to be in London long-term for work, he has put his apartment hunting on hold for now. She is in a privileged position, she says, and can live with her parents in Hertfordshire. But she is concerned about those who are not so fortunate. “I’ve been in a good position to have that to fall back on. A lot of people don’t have that.”
Max Willson, 27, a research manager, describes a similar experience. He had been living in the same flat for three years but, “after years of mice and cockroaches and general disrepair”, he decided to move on. She turned to SpareRoom, the UK’s most popular flat- and house-sharing site, but says it became “quickly clear that it’s a crazy place to audition your personality”, with “hundreds of people” applying for the same room
“A lot of people were asking and going to see them. I was encouraged to ‘make your best offer’ by letting agents, and the places would be off the market within an hour,” Willson said. “To make it worse, you’d have to give a holding deposit before you knew it, so in theory you’d have several holding deposits at once. And you had to write cover letters asking for the place. Some places were so terrible , but they demanded four-figure rents.”
After searching for two months, she finally found a flat in Oval, south London, which is “very nice but very expensive”. The experience has left a mark on him. “It was probably the most stressful time of my life,” he said.
In Manchester, rents are reported to be rising faster than in the capital. TikTok influencer Jess Geary, 25, went viral last week after filming an angry video saying she had spent three months looking for a flat in the city center, without success. He said he managed just one view during that entire period, he told the Manchester Evening News, and said the flat ads were pulled “within minutes”.
“This is a public service announcement from me to you: don’t move to Manchester,” Geary said on TikTok. “There are no flats available. I’ve been on the phone every day, I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten.”
For those without a safety net, spiraling prices can have devastating consequences. Homelessness rates are now higher than before the pandemic in two-fifths of local authorities, according to data from the Department for Housing, Housing and Communities. Homelessness charity Shelter says inquiries from people seeking advice on emergency support with their tenancy have risen by 177% since the start of the year, from 8,195 between January and March to 22,677 in the three months until the end of July. People on housing benefit, who often struggle to find places to rent in the first place, are at greatest risk.
Vicky Hines, Shelter’s strategy lead for the West Midlands, said October’s energy price rise to £3,549 a year meant things were getting worse as people juggled rent with living costs. He said people would be forced into temporary accommodation, like a family he knows who had to leave their property because of the poor condition, but couldn’t afford anywhere else, so they were col· located in temporary accommodation two hours from their children’s schools. She added that she was “scared” of what would happen in the coming months.
Sophie Delamothe, from campaign group Generation Rent, called on the government to take urgent action, including introducing “a rent freeze right now” and a pause in no-fault evictions and evictions for rent arrears. “There were actions during the pandemic, so why not now?” she said “I think we haven’t seen the worst yet.”